Hundreds of marchers and cyclists and even tractor drivers, who have been travelling from all corners Europe, for weeks in some cases, gathered in Brussels yesterday to call for radical changes to EU food and farming policy.

Activists including farmers, food producers and concerned consumers from over 20 of the EU’s 27 member states marched on the seat of European power to demand an agricultural policy which reflects the continent’s social and environmental needs. Debate is ongoing in Europe over reforms of the Common Agricultural Policy, due to come into effect in 2014.

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 Although the European Commission initially proposed making a proportion of direct payments conditional on fulfilling certain environmental criteria, in an attempt to make  the single payments that account for around 40 per cent of the entire EU budget more acceptable to European citizens, the industrial farming lobby has pushed for the dilution of environmental considerations, maintaining these should be kept as part of pillar 2 (rural development), under which other social and environmental programmes are currently delivered.    

The organisers and marchers behind the Good Food March, which reached Brussels on Wednesday (19th September), are calling for an end to food commodity speculation, more support for sustainable family farms (especially organic farms), a grassroots based rural development policy and increased cultivation of local protein crops – rather than importing soy to feed Europe's farm animals.

Geneviève Savigny, a farmer from France and a spokesperson for the European arm of international small farmers’ organisation Via Campesina elaborated, “The Good Food March is the biggest gathering of citizens calling for a radical change of direction in European food and farming policy in the last years. It has attracted people from across Europe, sending a very powerful message to decision-makers that people want a better CAP which ensures all farmers can stay in business and there is good food for all.”

On Wednesday, after marching to the different EU institutions in Brussels, the demonstrators joined together for a meal outside the European Parliament. They served organic, seasonal, and regional food and took part in workshops and discussions with Members of the European Parliament. The demonstrators also presented albums filled with one thousand messages to representatives of the European institutions.

Marchers were keen to explain their reasons for pushing for change and taking part in the march. Regine Holloh, a goat farmer and march organiser said, “We have travelled 900 kilometres from Munich to Brussels to say the time is right for a new policy so that we young farmers have a chance to supply the people in Europe with greener, better and fairer food. The European Parliament and European Commission must support good food and good farming, and put these ahead of the interests of the food-industry lobby.”

Stephen Meredith, policy advisor at IFOAM EU Group added: “EU agriculture policy affects our environment and the social and economic future of farming and rural communities. We need real and meaningful change to respond to long-term sustainability challenges. The European Parliament must ensure there is transparent and inclusive decision-making on the CAP which takes into account the opinions of all parliamentarians and all relevant Committees representing different, but equally important, perspectives.”

The march has been organised by a number of food and farming groups from around Europe, including Friends of the Earth and the Slow Food movement. The coalition maintains that food production has been taken too far into the realm of the financial and the unique social and environmental aspects of farming risk being overshadowed unless European food policy changes dramatically during these reforms.

Although support payments were initially devised to support farmers and ensure Europeans had access to affordable food, in recent years heavy criticism has been levelled at the system, which members of the Good Food March claim now supports rich polluting multinationals, large-scale farms and undercuts producers in the developing world. In the UK last year, a scandal broke when it was revealed the major beneficiaries of CAP payments are some of the country’s wealthiest landowners.    

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