Food sovereignty is defined as the right that people have to organise and provide for themselves in a sustainable and ecological way, prioritizing local economies. It locates producers, distributors and consumers at the heart of food systems and food politics, above the demands of markets and the industry in general.

In Gipuzkoa, the government aims to favour agricultural policies that give flexibility to current legislation, which currently favors large producers, and the industry and generally causes difficulties to small farmers. The director of Agriculture and Rural development, Mr. Koldo Lizarralde, advocates a cooperation between the Basque Government and the three Provincial Councils to achieve a new legal framework for the small farmer with a global approach that involves production, elaboration and sales. That is why it also requires a definition of what constitutes a small producer, and who it is applicable to. For example, specialists from the Provincial Councils went to Iparralde to see “in situ”, what French legislators do about it, as France has long permitted legal exemption for artisanal producers. Spain did not contemplate exemptions and that is why it has damaged artisanal production in Euskadi, causing a huge loss of potential among small producers. It is not easy working in a diversified market with no specific laws that cover your economic output level.

Food sovereignty focuses on local and national markets, empowers farmers and family agriculture, small scale fishing, traditional pasturing and it locates food production, distribution and consumption at the base of sustainable environment, and social and economic society. It also promotes transparent trade that guarantees decent incomes and the rights of consumers to control their own feeding and nutrition. An important statistic is that in the Basque Country, 7% of the products consumed are local, and the rest come from outside the Basque Country.

Mr. Lizarralde considers that it is vital to promote a more flexible legislation for small farmers, and work on the current ways and means of selling. The Consumer Association concept, where the client is committed to a weekly or a monthly basket of fresh produce, is a formula that is expanding among the population. However these traditional channels to market are not sufficient for the sales necessary to guarantee artisanal production. New channels of commercialisation are needed to be found. It is as important to know which product should be produced as it is to know how to sell it, who to sell it to, and how to reach out to those consumers.

The MEPs voted that 30% of the payments be made to farmers that applied three important measures: rotation of crops, the maintenance of an ecological area of interest and permanent pasture.
They also voted some exceptions to give more flexibility to the farmers. The small holdings with less than 10 hectares should remain exempt from these rules, farms between 10 and 30 hectares may rotate two crops and farms of over 30 hectares should comply with all three rules. Another exception are farms that already apply national environmental standards and therefore are already respecting the environment. These farms are also to be exempt from these ecological or “greening” rules.

The instigator of these measures, the Portuguese socialist Mr Capoulas Santos, is satisfied that from now on, all the EU agriculture sector will comply with the same ecological legislation, no matter which country the farms are based in. Weather or not that country could afford investments in earlier rural development programmes.

These proposals need to be ratified by the Agricultural Commission and obtain the approval of the Parliament as a whole, before the MEPs initiate negotiations with the member states about the final shape of the future agricultural policy of the UE. The final voting is tentatively planned for the next session in March in Strasburg, and is pending the final numbers for the global EU budgets for 2014-2020.

These are real steps towards a more sustainable agriculture in the EU!