EU Agricultural Ministers have adopted Council conclusions on strengthening farmers’ position in the food supply chain and tackling unfair trading practices.
There was a strong support for calling the European Commission to prepare a legislative proposal next year which could tackle unfair trading practices in a successful manner.
At the level of the Visegrád Four and EU fora Hungary has always supported this initiative. The Government is strongly committed to defend farmers’ interests. Hungary has adopted several years ago a law which regulates unfair trading practices with regard to agricultural and food products – stressed Minister of State Andrea Gulyás.
The Minister of State underlined that apart from the measures taken farmers’ position in the food supply chain should be further improved as they are the most vulnerable link within the chain. The Ministry of Agriculture considers that price volatility risks should be shared more fairly by the different actors of the chain and market transparency should be increased.
The Agricultural Markets Task Force which has been established by the European Commission in 2015 has published its report on this topic in November. The report has made different recommendations regarding market transparency, risk management, contractual relations, competition rules and financing.
