The ECR Group were delighted to welcome the Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development, Mr Janusz Wojciechowski, to our group meeting on 7 December in the context of the European Committee of the Regions plenary session to discuss the future of the EU's Common Agricultural Policy as well as the importance of localism in food production.

Commissioner Wojciechowski highlighted several times during the ECR Group meeting that if "quality of life does not improve in rural areas, we will see a rapid decrease in the number of European farmers".

For the Commissioner, "European agriculture is a champion in many respects, the EU is a global standard for safe food and we must continue to preserve this". To achieve this however, the quality of life in rural areas must be improved and further developed. Although the Commissioner recognises the many investments in rural areas such as road infrastructure, "there is still a great lack of public transport making it very difficult for farmers to get to cities and towns".

The Commissioner's reflections also included the importance of food security and how it was confirmed by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic that during the first European-wide lockdowns, without farmers, it would not have been possible to put food on supermarket shelves and on our plates. Now more than ever, "farmers must be assisted" and he insisted that "shorter food supply chains could be one of the main solutions to the current problems".

He gave the example of how every statistical portion of food has to travel an average of 170km between farm and fork, and with shorter food supply chains this would drastically reduce the cost of transport and food and therefore be better for all stakeholders – farmers, animals and the consumer. In this regard, the Commissioner also called for the development of local food production, which would "create opportunities that aim at economic and food security".

Commissioner Wojciechowski concluded by recognising the many benefits of the European Green Deal and the Farm to Fork strategy but of utmost importance for him is that "these two very ambitious programmes are continually monitored to check if the financial stability of farmers is affected."