On how to secure a sustainable future for the EU livestock sector in light of the need to ensure food security, farmers’ resilience and the challenges posed by animal diseases?
AGRI-PR-774483
Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development · Rapporteur: Carlo Fidanza
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This draft report addresses the future of the EU livestock sector, covering its economic, environmental, and social roles, and the challenges of animal diseases. It calls for tailored policies, support for farmers, and measures to ensure sustainability and competitiveness.¶¶¶ It urges the Commission to establish a high-level group on livestock, maintain CAP support, promote innovation, and ensure reciprocity in trade standards. It also emphasizes prevention and vaccination against animal diseases, and calls for compensation and risk management tools.¶¶¶
Committee position. The rapporteur proposes a resolution that welcomes the Commission's Vision, calls for a high-level group on livestock, and outlines a comprehensive set of recommendations on economic, environmental, social, and animal health aspects.¶¶¶
Key points
- Welcomes the Commission's 'Vision for Agriculture and Food' and calls for a high-level group on livestock to address sector challenges.¶¶
- Stresses the need for a multidimensional policy response that considers economic, environmental, and social importance, and rejects a one-size-fits-all approach.¶¶
- Calls for improving productivity and efficiency to strengthen food security, while ensuring stable incomes and better working conditions for farmers.¶¶
- Urges maintaining the CAP budget in real terms, securing coupled support for ruminants without additional environmental conditionalities, and updating reference prices for safeguard clauses.¶
- Calls for promoting research and innovation, including precision livestock farming and digital technologies, and for the Commission to report on best practices.¶
- Urges investment in education and training for sustainable and animal-welfare-friendly practices, and support for young farmers and women in the sector.¶¶
- Calls for recognition of livestock farming in the bioeconomy strategy and for funding for preventive measures and compensation for large carnivore attacks.¶¶
- Highlights the role of grassland-based systems in ecosystem services and calls for integrating crop and livestock production, and for revising the Nitrates Directive to allow alternative fertilisers.¶¶¶
- Warns against large-scale livestock reductions and calls for investment in research to reduce the ecological footprint of livestock.¶¶
- Calls for evidence-based dietary guidelines and warns against promoting nutritionally inadequate substitutes and overhyped cellular agriculture.¶¶
- Stresses the importance of prevention, early detection, and vaccination against animal diseases, and calls for a centralised vaccination data bank and EU-level coordination of vaccine research and supply.¶¶¶
- Calls for compensation schemes covering the entire supply chain, accelerated financial aid during outbreaks, and for engaging trading partners to accept regionalised trade bans and inactivation treatments.¶¶
Who is affected
- EU livestock farmers, particularly those in mountain and disadvantaged areas, will be affected by calls for tailored support and compensation.¶¶
- The Commission is called upon to establish a high-level group, revise the Nitrates Directive, and ensure reciprocity in trade agreements.¶¶¶
- Member States are urged to invest in education and training and to develop risk management schemes for animal diseases.¶¶
- International trading partners are targeted by calls to accept regionalised trade bans and inactivation treatments.¶
Figures and deadlines
- 58 % of European farms keep animals, and the sector employs around 4 million people.¶
- In 2023, the EU had 133 million pigs, 74 million bovine animals, 58 million sheep, 11 million goats, and 1.63 billion poultry birds.¶
- EU meat production in 2023 was 40.7 million tonnes, with pork at 50 %, poultry 32 %, beef 15 %, and sheep and goat meat 1 %.¶
- EU net exports of animal products reached EUR 37.8 billion in 2024.¶
- Only 12 % of farm holdings in the EU are run by people under 40.¶
Legal basis: Articles 38 and 39 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union¶