The European Parliament excludes stables from the list of polluting industries

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The stables will not be considered polluting like industrial plants. With 367 votes in favor and 245 against, the European Parliament yesterday adopted the position of the Agriculture commission, which also excludes large cattle farms from the obligations deriving from the new EU directive on emissions. “Now the ball returns to the Council of EU Environment Ministers for the trialogues – explains Paolo De Castro, rapporteur for the S&D group to the Agriculture Commission – where we hope that, starting from Italy, a majority of Member States will be created in favor of the position of the European Parliament’.

All the main Italian agricultural organizations were satisfied: “Equating livestock farming with industrial activities would have been unfair and misleading with respect to the role they play in environmental balance and food security in Europe,” said the president of Coldiretti, Ettore Prandini. An assumption, that of the European Commission, “from which unsustainable economic and administrative repercussions would have arisen”, recalled the president of the agri-food cooperative alliance, Carlo Piccinini.

“The inclusion of cattle farms would have led to the closure of numerous production facilities with the consequent loss of jobs,” added the number one of Confagricoltura, Massimiliano Giansanti. Furthermore, recalled the president of the CIA, Cristiano Fini, Italy is already on the right track in reducing pollution in the primary sector: “In Europe, the incidence of livestock on overall emissions is between 7% and 10% and our country does even better, where CO2 emissions from animal husbandry represent just 5.2% of the total».

Assocarni also applauds the choices of the European Parliament: «The majority of MEPs – reads a note from the association – understood the great value of the bovine supply chain in its aspects of circularity, protection of the territory by the breeder, commitment of the sector in producing more with fewer resources, and of its constant contribution to food security, avoiding having to depend in the future on third countries and production standards far from European models”. For Luigi Scordamaglia, managing director of Filiera Italia, «the project to dismantle European production wanted by Timmermans has received a setback». In Italy, cattle breeding represents more than 4.5% of the turnover of the agri-food sector (excluding distribution and catering), for a value of over 9 billion euros, and involves more than 358,000 employees and over 133,000 farms.