The role of producers´ organisations in rebalancing the food chain: yesterday, today and tomorrow?
The first questions address in the paper are historical: why the European Union has developed the legal concept of “producers´ organisations” instead of taking advantage of the existing cooperative legal framework and how they have developed in particular in the precursor case of the fruit and vegetables. Secondly, the paper presents and discuses some of the important changes in the European regulation, introduced by the new CAP 2014-2020, concerning the possibilities of joint selling, joint negotiating and farmers cooperation. It concludes that the current situation is deeply unsatisfactory. It continues with some considerations on the future debate which, in our opinion without any doubt, will take place sooner or later and concludes with some proposals to clarify and to improve the current rules. Both consumers and producers are suffering from excessive market volatility. The paper presents a possible win-win strategy which contribute to rebalance the food chain and to safeguard consumers´ interests. They are also compatible with the current European financial rules and disciplines. Current primary regulation will have to be change. The main obstacle are nor technical nor legal. As often, changes have first to start in the mind of the main economic and political actors.
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The role of producers´ organisations in rebalancing the food chain: yesterday, today and tomorrow?
- 1. www.company.com The role of producers´ organisations in rebalancing the food chain: yesterday, today and tomorrow? García Azcárate Tomás y Jaime de Pablo
- 2. www.company.com Index • Yesterday: the fruit and vegetable CMO reform • Today: Collective bargaining • Today Crisis (un)management • Tomorrow: New rules needed
- 3. www.company.com Yesterday I • EU support for producers groups since the Mansholt Plan (1968) • Fruit and vegetable EU regulation always promoted producers´ organisations (never limited to coops) • Major change of philosophy in 1996
- 5. www.company.com Yesterday III: a major change…
- 6. www.company.com Yesterday IV: … with some limits: Organisation rate by MS (2010)
- 7. www.company.com Today: collective bargaining (Articles 169 to 171 of Reg. 1308/2013) • Allowed in some sectors: some arable crops, milk, olive oil, beef and veal • Unprecise concepts: limited to organisations which carry out “significant activities” in terms of volumes and “production costs” • They cannot exceed a certain percentage of the “relevant market” • So confuse that guidelines have been adopted in November 2015: 48 pages and some confusion persists
- 8. www.company.com Today: Crisis (un)management • As we have seen with the recent measures adopted for the milk market, private crisis management is possible but late: “only if the Commission has already adopted one of the (crisis management) measures” • The deeper the crisis is, the later the private arrangement is implemented, the more severe the agreed disciplines have to be; the more desperate the producers will be: the more difficult it will be to implement and control
- 9. www.company.com Tomorrow • Private crisis management makes only sense as a preventive measure, as a "measure to calm markets“ • Clear requirements should be explicitly define in the EU regulation • Coordinated actions are more effective and cheaper. They should be allowed
- 10. www.company.com To keep in touch… • Web page: http://tomasgarciaazcarate.com • Twitter: Tgarciaazcarate • Linkedin: Tomas Garcia Azcarate • Facebook: Tomas Garcia Azcarate