Speaking at the Annual Congress of Spanish Cooperatives in Valencia last month, European Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development, Phil Hogan praised moves made by UK and Spanish farmers to improve fairness in the supply chain and produce more food with a lower environmental impact.
“[A] key strength of cooperatives is the issue of bargaining power and the position of the producer in the food supply chain. But even for cooperatives, we see there are difficulties – and I have signalled on several occasions that I take this issue particularly seriously,” he said.
“The Spanish Law on the Food Chain, which is 2 years in force this past week, sets contractual rules for contracts above a certain value, in which one party is an SME or is economically dependent. A Code of good practices is also recommended for food related contractual relations.
“There are moves afoot along similar lines in other EU member states. Earlier in the week I attended the Annual Conference of the National Farmers’ Union of England and Wales. There I heard feedback on the new office of the Groceries Code Adjudicator, a watchdog designed to ensure fairness between suppliers and retailers. The Adjudicator has the power to impose fines of up to 1% of turnover. Whereas it is a new office and too soon to comment on it’s functioning, it is a huge step in the right direction. The Spanish and British models could thus act as examples for action in other EU member states and possibly at EU level.”