Last week the Irish Farmers Journal went to press midway through the annual Forum for the Future of Agriculture conference. While I mentioned the absence of Dutch Commissioner Vice President Frans Timmermans, (I mistakenly stated he was Belgian rather than Dutch, apologies) and the likelihood of changes to the EU Green Deal and Farm to Fork strategy because of the energy and food crises caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the overall theme of the conference was the building of sustainable food systems.

High fliers

It was Julia Riss, the spokeswoman for the enormous German supermarket group – REWE – who should have been the star of the conference, but with so many high fliers it seemed as if her contribution had been overlooked.

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In her brief address Ms Riss referred to the fact that German pig farmers were losing money, so to ensure some level of profitability, the German supermarkets had decided that some form of price support via a collective understanding on buying and selling policies for pig meat was necessary.

Refreshing attitude

The REWE group is an enormous German co-operative with retail and tourism businesses.

With over 360,000 employees and sales of over €57bn, I found their attitude to their producer suppliers refreshing to say the least. Their speaker noted that the joint setting of producer prices caused complications with the competition authorities but it clearly didn’t prove to be an insuperable obstacle.

It is noticeable how little long-term thinking we have absorbed despite 50 years of the same EU membership

We have been so used to being brainwashed with the British way of doing business that we forget there’s a possibility of taking a whole different approach.

It is noticeable how little long-term thinking we have absorbed despite 50 years of the same EU membership that has so influenced continental business development.

In an unscheduled intervention, the former head of the WTO and former French Minister for agriculture, Pascal Lamy said the new Green Deal proposals require serious changes in the CAP and it is overlooked that the new precautions being proposed have disadvantages for EU producers in comparison to international competitors.

This has been a theme taken up elsewhere by French president Macron who has talked of a new emphasis on EU food security. The betting has to be that we are going to see significant changes in the Farm to Fork and Green Deal measures.