22 October 2024. The alarm sets off early. I check my emails and open Euractiv’s Agri-Food morning newsletter.“EU biomethane target ‘a curse’“, it says in the title. And my tiredness disappears immediately. 

Euractiv Agri-Food Brief, 22 October 2024 

Launching a new report is always a big moment. It’s the ‘grande finale’ after months full of strategy discussions, researching, editing, media work, and most of all great teamwork. 

But this time, an extra element of excitement came into play, as Feedback EU is about to present its newest report “Biomethane from manure: a curse, not a cure“ at the European Biogas Conference.  

Organised by the industry every year in Brussels, it is not only the most prominent platform to discuss the future of biogas and biomethane in Europe. As tickets cost almost 1000 euros, it is also an exclusive space that in most cases makes it impossible for civil society organisations to participate and bring in their perspective. 

But this year is different. The European Biogas Association has accepted our proposal to present our newest report at the morning plenary “The future of agriculture, today. Resilience, Sustainability and Food Security“.  

In front of more than 700 guests, during her speech our researcher and author of the report, Francesca Magnolo, highlights key concerns about the current and planned upscale of biomethane from manure, stressing that it:

🔸Creates (financial and regulatory) incentives to maintain or expand livestock production, when a drastic reduction in both production and consumption is essential to meet the EU’s environmental and public health goals and keep global warming below 1.5°
🔸Replaces a natural gas dependency with an animal feed dependency sourced from other continents, especially in the Global South, transforming animal feed into energy crops. This shift threatens the EU’s strategic autonomy and perpetuates neo-colonial forms of extractivism.
🔸Contradicts key EU policies, such as the EU Nature Restoration Law and the Deforestation-free products Regulation.
🔸Worsens power imbalances by increasing competition for land and driving up rental costs.  

Naturally, not everyone in the conference hall agrees with our concerns. I can hear it bubbling more and more in the rows of seats behind me, with people starting to debate with each other. 

After her presentation, Francesca Magnolo joins a constructive discussion with Connie Miller (FAO); Gaelle Marion (EU Commission), Diana Lenzi (Farming for Future Foundation), and Laurence Molke (Cycle0). As the audience also asks questions about our report, we have already achieved one thing: our concerns are being discussed at the centre of this conference! 

Our intervention and main policy recommendation, to end incentives to manure as biomethane feedstock, is then also displayed in the visual summary of the plenary: 

And also after our participation in the morning plenary session and during the entire two-day conference, we achieve exactly that: a debate. Again and again, people approach us and congratulate Francesca Magnolo on her speech. We hear from a biogas association that acknowledges a reduction in animal farming in its country, and has already significantly reduced its projected use of manure as a feedstock. We hear from biogas producers who reflect the origin of their feedstocks, and rather chose truly sustainable smaller scale options (horse straw & poop!). But we also engage in controversial discussions with fossil companies such as Repsol who are now heavily investing in biomethane from manure to “green” their business. Here, it becomes dramatically clear that those companies simply do not (want to) have a clue what the current harmful impact of the agricultural system is – and that biomethane will not solve the damage that intensive factory farming is causing every single day.  

But there is no time for frustration – the next dialogue partner is already waiting! And it again provides us extra motivation to keep exposing those harmful business models and the destructive relations between industrial meat consumption, biomethane production, and the health of our soils.  

After two days, I am exhausted. But most of all, I am glad that we attempted this adventure, including many encounters and contacts that we would otherwise never have made and reached with our report & evidence.  

And one thing is certain: our journey to “burst the biomethane bubble” – as part of a great coalition of inspiring organisations – continues! 

📸 credits : Gleamlight / Philippe Molitor 

Leaving salmon off the holiday recipes has become unthinkable. During the festive season, supermarkets nudge us towards choosing salmon for our Christmas dinner, through advertising and special promotions like recipe suggestions and posters.

However, the pleasant atmosphere associated with this fish can be deceiving. The salmon we find in our supermarkets mostly come out of industrial farms in countries like Norway, with its industry alone producing 1.479 million tonnes of farmed salmon last year.

Feedback has been working on the issues related to salmon farming for a while, denouncing the inefficiency, ecological harms and social injustice that come with it. We find it crucial that people are aware of these problems and able to make informed decisions when cooking for their loved ones, so here are 5 insights you can bring to the table should people wonder why you opted out of salmon for Christmas this time around:

1. A recent scientific article found that to produce 1kg of farmed salmon, it can take up to 6kg of whole, wild fish. Assuming that most of these wild fish are edible, this could be up to 60 portions of fish (100g) per kg of farmed salmon. These are smaller fish like sardines, blue whiting, sardinella, anchovies and we can eat them directly. But they are those most often ground up for feed for farmed fish. It turns out that many nutrients are lost in the process of feeding these perfectly edible fish to farmed salmon.
2. A part of these smaller (pelagic) fish are sourced from West Africa, where in countries like Senegal and the Gambia, people depend on them for their nutrition and livelihoods. In the 2 decades, the fishmeal and oil industry in that region has been booming, leading to, coupled with overfishing, increasing scarce fish populations. Their primary source of income, and way of life, scarce, many from the fishing communities on the West African coast see no other option than to look for better circumstances elsewhere, risking their lives on the way.
3. Labels strive to push companies in the right direction, but this does not always succeed. Some certifications don’t go far enough, and, as a consumer, it’s really hard to tell. Farmed Chilean salmon at Albert Heijn for example is ASC (Aquaculture Stewardship Council) certified, but still contributes to environmental destruction in what should be marine protected areas. We have also found that only half of ASC feed is required to come from certified fisheries.
4. Given all the harms of this mass (aquatic) livestock production, we believe that supermarkets should not promote the purchase of farmed salmon. It drives demand for a destructive way to produce food, and almost exclusively benefits the large corporations seeking ever higher revenues.
5. Luckily, alternatives are easily available. Opting for seaweed, plant-based alternatives, shellfish, or smaller fish offers a more responsible choice. And there’s no shortage of recipes either!

We’ve made a short infographic that’s easy to share:

Download the factsheet here!

For our other blogs and research reports, please browse our website.

As part of the Food Voices Coalition, we have sent a letter accompanied by our manifesto to Christophe Hansen, the European Commissioner for Agriculture and Food. The coalition includes seven organisations from six European countries: Feedback UK, Green REV Institute, Terra!, CECU (Federación de Consumidores y Usuarios), CAN France, ALTAA (Alliance pour les Transitions Agricoles et Alimentaires), and Feedback EU. Together, we strive to fix a broken food system wherein corporations dominate decisions, silencing the voices of those who grow, harvest, and consume food. 

In our manifesto we call on commissioner Hansen to join us in transforming retail practices that maintain an unhealthy, unequal and unsustainable food system. Additionally we urge him to work on a progressive food system to ensure that food is produced, distributed and consumed in ways that respect the planet, uphold human rights and animal welfare, empower communities and support equitable economics. 

Our ask is clear: let’s work together to create a food system that benefits everyone. We have invited Commissioner Hansen to meet with us and explore how we can collaborate to bring these ideas to life! 

Read the letter to Commissioner Hansen here

With the new EU Commission in office, this is also an exciting time for the Food Policy Coalition (FPC), a diverse group of organisations representing farmers, consumers, nature, health, and animals. With Feedback EU being an active member, we are proud to announce two letters that the FPC has published this week:

1. Together with 43 organisations, we have written to the new EU Commissioner for Agriculture and Food Christophe Hansen, to offer our help and expertise in shaping policies to support a transition to fair, healthy, and truly sustainable food and farming systems. You find the whole letter here
2. And together with over 20 civil society organisations, we call on Vice-President Ribera Rodríguez and Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra to put climate action and a just transition for EU agriculture at the core of their work. This also means to not waste public money on “technological fixes” such as biomethane production (as explained in our recent report), but rather develop a strategy for shifting animal farming away from industrial models that harm our environment communities, animals, and health! In this journey, farmers should be strongly supported. You find the whole letter here.

On 19 November 2024, the fourth Plant the Future dinner took place, organised by the Transition Coalition Food. The afternoon programme brought together around 230 people from a wide range of sectors: entrepreneurs from the entire chain, scientists, NGOs, and politicians. The theme was ‘from ideal to business impact’. Despite the great diversity of contributions by speakers, including from meat processing companies, there was no doubt among those present about the need to reduce the share of animal protein in our diet and to drastically increase the share of plant-based protein.

Feedback EU was one of the many organisations and companies that hosted a round table. At our table were Elly Hemmelder (supermarket Plus) and Eline van Muilwijk (Quista), Bram van Helvoirt (scientist), Brenda Poot (Municipality of The Hague), Liane Lankreijer (Ons Eten, a local food alternatives network in The Hague), and Renate Stuger (founder of the petition for a neighborhood supermarket in Moerwijk). Feedback EU specifically invited them to support the initiative from Moerwijk for a supermarket with economic, ecological, and social functions for the neighborhood and to further explore the concept of a democratic supermarket. During the imaginative and tasty plant-based dinner, we had inspiring conversations about giving voices to people in the supply of produce and value creation of supermarkets and what would be needed to make this happen. Time flew by and at the end we concluded that we would like to set up a business case with residents and entrepreneurs for a social and healthy supermarket, in which of course the share of plant-based proteins is at least 60%, but also the supply meets at least 60% of the Wheel of Five with mainly fresh food and short chains. We would like to thank our guests for their committed and inspiring contributions to the discussion!

During the dinner, Frank Mechielsen, director of Feedback EU, offered a summary of the report “Trading away the Future? How the EU’s agri-trade policy is at odds with sustainability goals” to MPs from five political parties. The report uses case studies in soy, rapeseed, and beef to show that EU trade policy does not contribute to a sustainable transition of our food system, but rather increases inequality and climate change, health problems and food insecurity.

Key-note speakers were Rasmus Prehn, former Danish Minister of Agriculture, and Rune-Christoffer Dragsdahl, President of the Vegetarian Association in Denmark. They presented the progressive Danish Plan of Action to enable the plant-based transition in agriculture. Their main message was to work together, even with parties with whom you usually do not sit around the table and look for the common ground that connects us all, in this case food. In the process, all interests are carefully considered, but it is inevitable that concessions will also have to be made. Above all, look for the possibilities for all parties. They referred to the Netherlands, where the agriculture sector has many similarities with the situation in Denmark, to develop its own Plan of Action to accelerate the food transition and to collaborate with the Danes to produce such a plan at the European level as well.

Following our research and campaigning highlighting the supply of fish oil sourced from FAO 34 — the Major Fishing Area located off the coast of Northwest Africa — to the European feed industry, Feedback is issuing this statement in response to the industry’s response, including:

• Salmon Scotland statement that it does not use marine ingredients sourced from West African fisheries;

• MOWI’s statement that it has not sourced any raw materials from Mauritania since 2023;

• Skretting statement that Skretting Norway did not purchase fish oil from Africa in 2023 or 2024 (although we note that according to a media report in November 2024, Skretting stated that it continued to source from the region).

We are pleased that the industry has responded to the overwhelming evidence on the damaging impact of sourcing from this region.

We remain extremely concerned about the ‘food-feed competition’ which is being driven by the global aquaculture industry in regions around the world as high-impact activities such as salmon and seabass farming continue to expand to serve high-income consumers in Europe, North America and Asia.

We therefore reiterate our call to companies throughout the supply chain (feed ingredient and compound feed producers, farmed salmon companies, retailers and food service companies) to provide full transparency on their sourcing practices and to comply with the following set of demands:

• Fish meal and fish oil (or products dependent on FMFO) should not be sourced from locations where its production is driving food-feed competition and exacerbating food insecurity and/ or exacerbating the risk of collapse of the marine ecosystem

• Salmon producers must have clear policies on responsible feed sourcing, which exclude the sourcing of feed produced with ingredients that are driving food-feed competition and exacerbating food insecurity and/ or exacerbating the risk of collapse of the marine ecosystem
• Producers must be fully transparent, consistent and granular on their aquafeed sourcing, including volumes, locations, species

Read the full report here

English summary

Dutch summary

Our new report is out!

There is no better time to rethink the EU’s current agri-trade policy. Recent U.S. election results have revealed the sudden vulnerability in the European Union’s global position. With Donald Trump threatening new tariffs and trade restrictions on Europe, the risks of the EU relying on third countries for its plant protein supply have become painfully clear. At the same time, the controversy surrounding the EU-Mercosur trade deal has laid bare the stark consequences of current trade agreements: negative impacts on farmers’ livelihoods due to unfair competition and environmental harm. This deal alone could trigger between 620,000 and 1.35 million hectares of deforestation over just five years, driven by expanded beef production in the Mercosur region.

As one of the largest global markets and one of the world’s most outward-oriented economies, the EU plays a key role in influencing global food trade. However, our new report ‘Trading Away the Future? How the EU’s agri-food policy is at odds with sustainability goals’ reveals how the EU’s current agri-trade policy is undermining global and EU sustainability goals in five key areas:

• The climate crisis: The livestock sector is a major barrier to the EU meeting its commitments under the Paris Climate Agreement and the European Green Deal: in the EU, emissions from the livestock sector are responsible for 81-86% of the block’s total agricultural GHG emissions. This sector is maintained by an abundant supply of imported soy. In 2022, the EU imported nearly 30 million tonnes of soy, amounting to 93% of total consumption. Nearly all of this is used to produce the 150 million tonnes of feed required to sustain the EU livestock sector, making it “a key enabler of mass-produced meat and dairy products”.
• Public health: The EU maintains stringent regulations on pesticide residues in agricultural products. However, pesticides banned or not approved in the EU can return to European consumers through imported soy and rapeseed, used in turn to feed cattle that EU citizens consume. In Brazil, soy is the most pesticide-intensive crop, and Brazil is the EU’s main supplier of soy. A human biomonitoring survey conducted between 2014 and 2021 found that 84% of samples from the bodies of children and adults across five European countries contained residues of two or more pesticides.
• Food security and EU farmers’ livelihoods: Today, one-third of globally produced calories are used to feed livestock; producing this feed requires three-quarters of agricultural land under cultivation. The EU has a major deficit in vegetable proteins due to high demand from its livestock sector, which cannot be met domestically. This reliance on imports from third countries exposes the EU to natural disasters, pandemics, and geopolitical crises. Additionally, cheap imports of soy and other products undercut EU farmers’ returns, driving discontent that impacts the rollout of crucial environmental policies. This was seen with the Commission’s recent decision to roll back ‘good agricultural and environmental conditions’ (GAEC) in the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) that would have promoted agroecological practices and the growth of protein crops. While far-right political parties and farming lobbies disingenuously co-opted farmer protests to frame them as solely being about the negative impact of “green” policies, the truth is that EU farmers are being undercut by bilateral trade agreements.
• Global equity: The EU’s agri-trade policy undermines public health in third countries and perpetuates neocolonial forms of agrarian extractivism. While 84% of EU exports to the Mercosur region are services and high-value industrial products, 75% of Mercosur exports to the EU are agricultural and mineral resources that require land use change, extraction, and the use of hazardous agro-chemicals. In some cases, these chemicals, despite being banned or not approved for use in the EU, are actually produced by European companies such as Bayer, Syngenta, and BASF and exported to third countries with different regulations on pesticides and herbicides. This is an egregious double standard in terms of respect for public health and the environment within and beyond the EU’s borders. Between 2011 and 2021, over 29,000 pesticide poisonings were recorded in Brazil, the EU’s largest supplier of soy.
• Animal welfare: While the EU positions itself as a global leader in animal welfare by setting strict rules for animal feed and livestock breeding, transport, and slaughter conditions, most obligations do not apply to imported meat. When it comes to imports, only welfare at the time of slaughter is taken into consideration. In Brazil, the second-largest beef exporter to the EU, animal welfare checks on farms and slaughterhouses are not regularly carried out. In Argentina, the third-largest exporter, the humane slaughter of animals is not required. However, there is strong public support in the EU for more stringent import requirements: the special 2023 Eurobarometer survey on animal welfare found that 93% of European citizens want imported animal products to respect the same animal welfare standards as those applied in the EU.

We call for concrete policy actions, including setting more ambitious international standards, adopting import requirements in EU law aligned with sustainability goals that benefit EU farmers, promoting a shift towards protein autonomy, and strategically implementing ‘Mirror Measures.’ The latter is further explored in the coalition report “Double Standards on Our Plates: Using Mirror Measures to Mitigate the Impacts of EU Trade Policy for a Sustainable Food System.”

The time to rethink trade is now!

Read the report

Read the executive summary

With the European Biogas Conference starting today, Feedback EU’s new research shatters arguments for increasing the use of livestock manure as a feedstock for biomethane production and calls for an immediate moratorium on new and expanded factory farms in the EU.

As the EU is planning to scale up its biomethane production from yearly 4.2 billion cubic meters (bcm) to 35 bcm in 2030, industry calculations heavily count on manure which is expected to contribute one third of all raw materials to this target. Under the heading Biomethane from manure: a curse, not a cure, the latest report from the food justice organisation Feedback EU dramatically bursts the bubble on biomethane production from livestock manure by exposing the perverse link between the current biomethane rush and the intensification of livestock production in Europe.

As new evidence shows, the push towards expanded livestock factory farms for the production of biogas and biomethane throughout Europe – heavily supported by public subsidies and accounting tricks in the Renewable Energy Directive – is in total contradiction with the requirement to drastically reduce livestock production and consumption. While the current move to more plant-based consumption pattern has also been recently affirmed by the Strategic Dialogue on the Future of EU Agriculture, it is all the more worrying that current biomethane policies sabotage such positive developments, standing against climate and public health goals.

Despite the remarkable absence of a European Commission impact assessment, increasing biomethane from manure is hailed as a win-all solution, one that reduces environmental impacts of industrial livestock and contributes to energy independence. This sounds too good to be true? Unfortunately, it is, with the current biomethane rush having major perverse environmental, economic and social implications.

As Feedback EU’s latest report demonstrates, Europe’s blind trust in biomethane:

• Creates (financial and regulatory) incentives to maintain or expand livestock production, when a drastic reduction in both production and consumption is essential to meet the EU’s environmental and public health goals and keep global warming below 1.5°
• Replaces a natural gas dependency with an animal feed dependency sourced from other continents, especially in the Global South, transforming animal feed into energy crops. This shift threatens the EU’s strategic autonomy and perpetuates neo-colonial forms of extractivism.
• Contradicts key EU policies, such as the EU Nature Restoration Law and the Deforestation-free products Regulation.
• Worsens power imbalances by increasing competition for land and driving up rental costs.

Francesca Magnolo, the researcher and technical expert who conducted the research said: “One of the perverse consequences of the biomethane rush is the ironic replacement of dependence on natural gas imports with dependence on animal feed, particularly from the Global South. In other words, biomethane fuels the neo-colonial exploitation of resources outside of Europe. But social justice issues are also emerging here in the EU, where local communities fear increased transports of waste as well as pollution from biomethane production. Most importantly, these concerns are currently being ignored. At the same time, competition for land and thus rental costs for farmers are rising further and further.”

Frank Mechielsen, Director of Feedback EU highlighted: “This reports bursts the bubble on biomethane from manure and shows it for what it is: a curse, not a cure. We request an immediate moratorium on more industrial livestock and call on policy-makers to prioritise dietary changes instead. What we need now are coordinated EU energy and food policies for a systemic and just change in our food systems. We cannot afford to repeat the painful mistakes of the last harmful biogas boom.”

In Senegal, the artisanal fishing community is making sure that their voices are heard. Decades of negligent fisheries management, overfishing and the arrival of fishmeal and fish oil factories have led to a dramatic reduction in fish populations along the coast of West Africa. As a consequence, fishermen find it increasingly hard to secure their daily catch. This in turn creates a ripple effect along the value chain: fish processing suffers from an increasingly scarce and expensive raw material. The price of a crate of sardines, sardinella, mackerel for instance have risen ten-fold over the last few years, making it impossible for artisanal processors to compete. 

By tradition, fish processing is a woman’s profession in West Africa. On our recent visit to Cayar, a fishing town harbouring one of the largest fishing fleets in Senegal, we spoke to the local GIE (economic interest group) of women processors and their outlook remains grim. The group’s members – all independent processors – have been in steady decline from over 300 to around 70 with women leaving as they cannot make ends meet through fish processing anymore. Therefore, lethargy has fallen over the processing sites. And it isn’t just the factories that threaten their livelihoods – climate change and new offshore oil and gas exploration in Senegal make the group worry about further harmful effects on the coastal and marine biodiversity and the capacity of fish populations to recover. 

It’s been long since the women were able to pay for the fish they smoke, dry, salt and ferment out of their own purses. They tell us that the only reason they are still in business are foreign companies that buy their product up-front, prefinancing the purchase of the fish they process. Nowadays, most of the fish they use comes deep-frozen from the port of Dakar. Meanwhile, the fish landed on the beach just next to the processing site remains absurdly inaccessible. 

The women are not alone in their fight, however. Several coalitions are active in Senegal, advocating for sustainable fisheries and the fair treatment of artisanal fishing community. The Network of Women in Artisanal Fisheries (REFEPAS) Interprofessional Council of Artisanal Fisheries (CONIPAS), the National Coalition for Sustainable Fisheries (CONAPED), the Coalition Against Fishmeal and Fish Oil Factories have all been putting pressure on the previous and current government. Their goal is to put a stop to allowing further factories to be built on the Senegalese coast and to close the ones in operation. Additionally, they want to make the fisheries sector more transparent, enforce sustainable fishing practices, and prevent foreign fishing fleets from pillaging populations of fish essential to the nutrition and livelihoods across the region. Further desperate calls for action revolve around preventing the persistent tragedy of clandestine migration: among those attempting to cross the Atlantic to reach Europe via the Canary Islands, many come from families dependant on fisheries and who have run out of options. More than 22,000 people have made it to the Canaries this way, more than double than last year. 

When confronted with the devastation caused by the global seafood economy, industrial fish farming and the feed companies that rely on the fishmeal and oil sourced from places like West Africa, it is hard to believe in the many statements of sustainability and efficiency that fish feed and farmed fish producers often like to repeat. Madame Ndao, president of the women processors’ GIE in Cayar, cannot understand why ‘these companies have to come to West Africa to steal the fish that her people depend on. They should be taking the fish from their own waters instead of pillaging elsewhere.’ 

Feedback continues to work on this issue, hoping to support and amplify the voices like Madame Ndao’s. Our research has and will continue to illustrate how food systems in Europe can have devastating effects in other parts of the world. And we are not alone. The UN special rapporteur Micheal Fakhri, having received a Feedback-led joint letter, made sure to address the issue in the Human Rights Council, stating that: ‘Many farmed fish are carnivorous species that require feed products harvested from wild fish stock, thereby creating another source of pressure on wild fish stocks and disrupting ecosystems. Moreover, global feed companies are exacerbating food insecurity in some communities. For example, over half a million tons of pelagic fish that could feed over 33 million people in the region are instead extracted from the ocean along the coast of West Africa and converted to fishmeal and fish oil, primarily in order to feed farmed fish and livestock, mostly in Asia and Europe.’ We will continue to work with allies in the EU to make sure this issue is not forgotten in policy making and make sure to denounce the companies that profit from this harmful system.  

Photo credits:  Coalition against FMFO factories

On 4 September, Feedback EU, in collaboration with Buurtkamer de Luyk, organised a meeting as part of our international project Our Food, Our Choice. The reason for this was a petition that active residents in the vicinity of the Jan Luykenlaan, situated in a deprived area of The Hague, presented to the municipality at the beginning of this year with the request for a supermarket. However, residents are asking for more than just a place to buy their groceries. They want a neighbourhood supermarket with a range of products that match the multicultural character of the neighbourhood. There must be a wide supply of fresh, healthy, and affordable food. It must be a place that contributes socially and economically to the well-being of its residents.

This prompted Feedback EU to commission a study into what these residents consider to be healthy and fair food and what the factors are to make the supermarket a lever for improving the neighbourhood.

In the first part of the afternoon, Guusje Weeber presented her findings, and the gathered residents reacted immediately and unequivocally. Contrary to the perception that people in deprived neighborhoods have no interest in food and only go for the cheapest and fast food, there was a climate of great awareness, and even passion about the importance of healthy food. Even unsprayed food was questioned, because our groundwater, ditch water, air and soil are so polluted that it is unavoidable that it gets into and on the food.

“We think it’s healthy, fresh fruit and vegetables, but maybe it actually makes us sick, that sprayed rubbish causes all kinds of allergies. We will take our responsibility if we can afford it. But the government must do this too, they don’t see the misery they are causing by their bad policies!”

After a short break, Liane Lankreijer of the organization Ons Eten from The Hague introduced the session “Design your ideal supermarket”. In one group, they talked about what can be found in the ideal supermarket and what is definitely not (plastic packaging). The other group focused on what the residents themselves can do to realize the supermarket and on the question in what way the ideal supermarket is different from a regular one.

The local supermarket will supply unsprayed, unirradiated food, fresh and locally grown fruit, and vegetables. To prevent waste, the misfitted vegetables are also for sale in the local supermarket, as well as a smaller range of products. It is not necessary to have ten types of rice on the shelves. Voting on what will be offered in the supermarket, meal prepping, discount cards, loyalty points, recipes, trips to where the food comes from and honest information, hiring young people from the neighbourhood as employees and providing breakfast at schools were mentioned as possible added value.

Residents want entrepreneurs to take responsibility. The pressure must be kept on and media attention is a means of achieving this. One local newspaper showed up. The time was too short to go deep into the topics and from the group came the request to organize such a meeting again, but this time in an evening and with civil servants present.

FeedbackEU created a video of the meeting to use at other occasions, both nationally and internationally, to stimulate the discussion on food poverty and the democratisation of supermarkets:

🚜 Anger, frustration, and burning wheels in front of the EU Parliament. The successful take-over of the protest & public discussion by destructive farming lobbies and right-wing parties. We all still remember these loud (and smelly) weeks of farmers’ protests in Brussels, the Netherlands, and beyond.

But as we stood in solidarity with those peaceful protestors asking for a sustainable & fair change of the current system, the next step was truly disappointing for all of us: shortly before the EU elections, environmental rules of the current agricultural policy were rolled back. And we asked ourselves: what would we be getting into in the coming five years, the new EU term?

🌊 But now the tides seem to have turned. Yesterday, the results of the “Strategic Dialogue on the future of EU Agriculture” were published. The dialogue consisted of 29 diverse (and often opposed) organisations and discussed for 8 months behind closed doors (and without leaks!). Decisions had to be made in consensus – which make the recommendations even more impactful.

So how does the dialogue propose that we get out of this mess?

Some key take-aways from the report:

1. (Finally) change the CAP & reach social justice: we need to fundamentally change the way we spend public money of the Common Agriculture Policy. That means strongly giving money to farmers for environmental services, as well as paying income support only targeted to the farmers who need it most! (p. 42)

2. Bye bye UTP’s! Farmers need to be able to make a living from the products they produce. Unfair trading practises need to be fought against. (p. 37)

3. End unsustainable trade (offs): the EU should ensure greater coherence between its trade and sustainability policies. And the process/purpose itself of negotiating trade deals on agriculture should be reviewed & changed. (p. 47)

4. Go (more) sustainable, healthy & plant-based! Recognizing the current trend of eating more plant-based products, citizens should be supported in this journey, through a review of current food labelling/marketing to children (including sugar), reforming public procurement to favour sustainability over the lowest price, and introducing tax reductions (at the national level) on more sustainable products. (p. 54)

⛔️ Unfortunately, the dialogue could not agree to clearly point out the need to reduce livestock numbers throughout Europe. Rather, the EU Commission should develop a strategy on the role of animal farming in general. More, there is also a focus on (not-defined) tech-fixes to reduce livestock emissions, and an ask for “long-term solutions” for areas which have a high concentration of livestock and environmental pollution.

5. Fight food waste! The EU should strongly fight against food insecurity and food loss & waste. For this, there should also be a focus on local food waste prevention programmes and “food waste hotspots”. Further, an EU Commission’s appointed body including all relevant Commission services should be introduced to coordinate future work on this topic. (p. 69)

6. Bioeconomy, but right? While highlighting the role that biomass will play also in the future, the risks of the bioeconomy (for example, when producing bioenergy from food or plants, as highlighted in our report on biomethane production) are underlined. Such risks also exist for countries outside the EU that supply us with biomass. The report further mentions the necessity to respect the “waste hierarchy” (so that the best use of a resource is ensured). (p. 67)

7. Work harder for gender equality and diversity: unequal access to land, childcare, financing, services, technology, and unsecure LGBTQIA+ rights stand in the way of reaching gender equality and diversity in agriculture and also rural areas! (p. 80)

⚠️ Let’s hope that all these specific recommendations will actually lead the way for the coming years – we have never been closer to making that much needed change!

So the results of the strategic dialogue are not only food for thought. Now is the time to act and implement! 🚀

⚡ We say it like it is: these have been some crazy weeks after the EU elections. But don’t be fooled: the real work for the old and new President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, as well as the new EU Parliament to deliver a Green & Social Deal only starts now! We need courage, we need the “European Pact for the Future“!

Don’t be mislead by those claiming that it’s time to put the brakes on European environmental laws – the opposite is true, as demanded by an overwhelming majority of Europeans!

Source: Eurobarometer, 2024

You want to see what the future could & should bring? Check out & sign the Pact here.

Of course, the coming 5 years will be tough. But the whole Feedback team will work hard to ensure that the EU..

• gets an agricultural policy that finally pays off for small farms, reduces emissions, and restores our nature.
• agrees on ambitious & the first-ever EU targets to reduce food waste. Currently, we waste more food than we import!
• ensures that its trade policies support rather than contradict laws protecting our environment and health.
• stops the injustice and destruction of our oceans and local communities caused by industrial aquaculture.
• makes citizens’ voices heard when it comes to their wants and needs around healthy, sustainable, and just food environments.

So there is no time to waste, and we are ready to make a change with our partners in the Netherlands, in Brussels, throughout Europe, and Western Africa.

We are in this together. To have a strong say against revisionist parties; and the fossil, meat, aquaculture, and industrial agriculture lobbies, we need everyone! Sign the European Pact for the Future – drafted by the EEB and supported by Feedback EU – now! #EUpact4future

Read the full report here: [report]

Monday, 17th of June, Eindhoven, Netherlands, 17:00 sharp. I enter the bus that will bring us to the venue of the International “Towards Halving Food Waste” Conference. And I know immediately that the next two days will be something very special. 

Why? Because the momentum could not be greater: just earlier that day, EU Ministers had agreed to, for the first time ever, introduce binding food waste reduction targets for the whole European Union – something that we had been heavily pushing for in the last few months as “Prevent Waste Coalition” with Zero Waste Europe, SAFE, EEB, and Too Good To Go. 

And because the whole world seems to sit in this bus. A professor from New Zealand. A doctoral researcher from Australia. A scientist from Greece. A Dutch expert on feed made from food surplus. And of course, Feedback EU is also on board, excited to share our work, make new contacts, get inspired, and develop new ideas for our campaigns on food waste and biomethane.  

Organising such a high-level conference, and giving room to all the different backgrounds and experiences of participants is challenging. And people taking time for more than two days, turning on their “out of office” notifications in their mailbox, and being truly focused, cannot be valued enough.  

But this is what the conference delivered.

Arrival day – Getting to know each other 

If there is one way to get people’s attention and start off a conference, it is a mind-blowing documentary. This was delivered by Kadir van Lohuizen and his World Press Photo winning project ‘Wasteland’ as well as film ‘Food for Thought’ that is currently showing on Dutch television. Whoever still thought that the Netherlands are a small country of tulips and cheese, was proven wrong this evening.  

Only 17 million people, but 11 million pigs, 4 million cows, and 100 million chickens – that is the Netherlands. 80% of Dutch tomatoes are exported. 85% of Dutch cheese is exported. And 84% of Dutch onions are exported – leading to most of the onions sold in Ivory Coast being Dutch. 

At the same time, this happens in a food system that is unjust, unsustainable and highly wasteful. More than 1/3 of all food is wasted. For many, that sounds abstract. In practise, this means that 700.000 loafs of bread are wasted in the Netherlands. Every single day. Worldwide, emissions from food waste are as high as four times the emissions of the aviation sector! 

Day 1 – Inspiration & Collaboration 

Photo credit: To Huidekoper

“Food-feed-fuel competition”. Yet another word that doesn’t really capture the absurdity of our current agricultural system. It was therefore high time for our director Frank Mechielsen to take the floor – both in a smaller breakout-session, as well as on the large plenary stage in front of 350 people – to present our work and shed light on the mislead European biomethane policies we are currently up against with our allies: 

Mislead because instead of preventing food “waste” or using food “surplus” at least for animal feed, more and more it ends up in anaerobic digesters to produce biogas, which can then be upgraded to biomethane (and be injected into the gas grid).  

Mislead because biomethane hinders the needed reduction of livestock (with manure getting a price tag for energy production) as well as causes harmful methane emissions (especially due to the additional growing of crops like maize for the biogas plant as well as methane leakage).  

And mislead because all of that comes at a high price, not only for the environment and climate, but also for taxpayer’s money in the form of subsidies.  

At the conference, we therefore had a clear call to action. EU countries need to respect the food use hierarchy and especially increase their efforts to prevent food waste. The EU must finally conduct a thorough scientific impact assessment on current biomethane policies. And until truly sustainable production and use is proven, all biomethane subsidies should be stopped! 

For our presentation and statements, we received a lot of positive feedback. Be it our discussions with the EU Commission, other civil society organisations, feed companies, or scientists – we know the current biomethane surge is wrong and dangerous, but the conference also gave us new momentum to have a more critical debate.
 

Day 2 – Food waste-free field trips 

After an eventful first day, it was time for what would make this conference even more special – practical fieldtrips. Choosing from all the options that the organizing team offered had already been a challenge. But it was worth it.  

Because sometimes you need to see it with your own eyes to fully realize the amounts of food surplus that Europe produces. Visiting companies that produce feed for animals from food surplus delivered just his. Tens of thousands of containers. Filled only with chocolate. Bread. Noodles. Rice. Whole truckloads of carrot pieces, left over as carrots are cut into unnatural round shapes before being sold in supermarkets.  

What became crystal clear is that producing feed from surplus food can only be one part of the solution. We need to produce less food leftovers in the first place. We need to redistribute it to people whenever we can. And yes, we need to reduce livestock production drastically. Becoming more circular, and closing the “loop”, that must also mean that the “loop” becomes smaller in general.  

But one thing is for sure: the bus ride of international experts dedicated to halving food waste by 2030 is going on, and already aiming for its next conference and destination this fall – Budapest! 

Coming back to Brussels and The Hague after two inspiring days, we want to use the opportunity to especially thank:

• Toine Timmermans, director of Samen Tegen Voedselverspilling;
• Sanne Stroosnijder, Program manager Food Loss & Waste Prevention at Wageningen Food & Biobased Research, business developer at Samen Tegen Voedselverspilling, and wonderful moderator of the Food-feed-fuel session we participated in;
• Philip den Ouden, chair of Samen Tegen Voedselverspilling, for organising and hosting this great conference!
• To Huidekoper, thank you also for the great photos! 

In this second year of operation, we achieved a lot as Feedback EU, in close collaboration with our sister organisation Feedback Global, based in the UK. We further built legitimacy for our campaign asks in relation to less and better meat, targeting supermarkets, big meat and dairy companies, financial institutions, the Dutch government and the EU.

We further developed our campaigns on biomethane with a win at EU level at the end of last year, and on farmed fish, resulting in the publication of our Blue Empire report at the start of this year. Furthermore we achieved new funding to start new campaigns on trade justice and food sovereignty, food justice and food environment.

Our peer credibility, partnerships, networks, and coalition presence in the Netherlands and Europe continues to grow. A joint NGO position and building alliances with other stakeholders who aim for a real food system transition is necessary in these turbulent times. Loud farmer protests causing EU and Dutch policymakers to roll back the few safeguards to preserve our land and biodiversity and reduce the food emissions under the EU Green Deal. We need a fair deal that addresses the systemic issues responsible for our current unhealthy, unfair and unsustainable food system.

Feedback EU ended 2023 with a strong position for 2024 in which we will be more than doubling our funding support, from Euro 296,316 in 2023 to a projected income of Euro 771,000 in 2024 of which Euro 370,000 for sub-grants for European partners. Our team has grown from 4 to 5 staff members, one of them based in Brussels to implement our EU level advocacy. Read the complete report here.

I like to thank our team and board for the excellent work to contribute to our mission.

Frank Mechielsen,
Executive Director Feedback EU

In a recent article, the Mauritanian Institute for Oceanography and Fisheries, French fish oil supplier Olvea and the Marine Stewardship Council use the platform of science to pursue a corporate agenda and to promote certification as a model to replicate across West Africa based on the example of a controversial Fisheries Improvement Project (FIP) in Mauritania.  

In reality, the Fisheries Improvement Project the authors are seeking to justify has substantial flaws. NGOs and small-scale fishers have repeatedly denounced the initiative as ‘certifying the unsustainable’. The FIP’s sponsors are principally producers of fishmeal and fish oil, as well as global feed producers such as Cargill and Skretting which supply aquaculture producers in the Global North. Recently, a report by Partner Africa, commissioned by the Global Roundtable for Marine Ingredients, highlighted numerous problems linked to the production of fishmeal and fish oil in the region including pollution from factories, loss of income and opportunities to work, and the depletion of fish stocks. 

According to the authors of the Marine Policy article, “The idea behind FIPs is to use market incentives in seafood value chains to stimulate improvements in fisheries management, which may lead to environmental improvement.” Since the inception of the FIP in 2017, sponsors of the project including Olvea have continued sourcing fishmeal and oil from factories in Mauritania as documented by the Mauritanian Society for the Commercialisation of Fisheries Products (SMCP), the CFFA, and Feedback, contributing to the problem of overfishing that the FIP is meant to solve.  

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) EAF-Nansen Programme has called the state of the once-abundant sardinella fisheries, which are targeted by the FMFO industry, “alarming” and data shows a precipitous decline in the round sardinella catch since 2018.  

Braham et al Fisheries Research 2024  

The FIP was scheduled to provide a progress report at the end of February, which it has so far failed to do. With the project set to end next year and taking into account all of the above, we cannot see this initiative as anything but a greenwashing attempt by an industry threatened by further reputational risk through their persistent extraction of fish essential to ecosystems and people’s livelihoods in a region struggling with food insecurity. The article’s authors themselves clearly outline the motivations of the industry to be part of the FIP: 

The FIP is recognised under the MarinTrust’s ‘Improver Programme’, which allows factories who are FIP participants and pass a MarinTrust factory audit to sell product ‘from the MarinTrust Improver Programme’. This is not the same as MarinTrust certified product, but nevertheless allows some direct commercial benefit (access to a higher value market), according to FIP-participating companies, and as such is an appropriate tool to anticipate the end of the FIP with the goal of having both the fishery and the suppliers MarinTrust certified. (p.3) 

Going back to the FIP’s impact and benefits to marine ecosystems and local communities, we struggle to find evidence for it in this article. We’re left with the following hypothesis, but miss references or tangible evidence: “in conclusion, a credible FIP, and other engagements with certification programmes, have provided Mauritania with a useful tool to bring together the private and public sector to address management challenges, as well as mobilising international resources which can be used in Mauritania in a flexible way. The benefits brought by engagement with certification programmes also include clear goals and a transparent and participatory ethos”. 

With little progress to show since its inception, and the ongoing depletion of target fish populations, the FIP provides a free-pass to companies aiming for high-value markets, without them needing to comply with the demanding environmental or social standards of these markets. According to the authors of the article, the problems in Mauritanian fisheries stem from weak state regulation: “Weak state regulation has failed to control capacity, and stakeholders are turning to value-chain arrangements such as industry coalitions, fishery improvement projects (FIPs) and certification to support progress towards management objectives in the face of this expansion.” 

Research by Feedback shows that fish sourced from Northwest Africa (FAO 34) to supply fish oil to the Norwegian salmon farming industry in 2020 could have provided between 2.5 million and 4 million people in the region with a year’s supply of fish sufficient to meet their nutritional needs. The small fish targeted by the FMFO industry contain key nutrients including iron, zinc, and calcium that are those most needed for children’s cognitive development and for women in West Africa, where more than half of the female population suffer from anaemia. This is happening at a time when hunger is on the rise across sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and new research shows that of eight global regions, SSA is the one most severely impacted by lack of micronutrient availability 

We should not allow FMFO and feed companies to drive exploitative practices under the guise of a mere promise to improve fisheries that has for more than half a decade failed to deliver. It is time to put a stop to the practice of extracting whole, wild fish in their millions to supply the global feed industry, depriving millions of people in Africa of nutritious food and putting entire communities’ livelihoods at risk.