"I'm looking to be able to maintain production of food in Europe," said Fischer Boel, asked about her priorities for the future Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
She did not say Europe should be able to feed its own people, but stressed the importance of having a strong agricultural sector amid increasing global competition.
A situation in which Europe is dependent on food imports from countries with unstable governments would be "a nightmare," she said.
Responding to growing global demand
While the EU is the world's biggest exporter of agricultural products, it is also its biggest importer, the commissioner said. But "we and the sector have been very clever to add value to production," she stressed, saying "we are mostly importing raw materials - putting maybe soybeans through the pigs - but then exporting high quality products worldwide".
With the world's population predicted to increase from its current six billion to nine billion by 2050, Fischer Boel hopes that the future CAP will provide farmers with the tools to respond to growing demand for food. She believes the CAP should help farmers to "bolster their production in a way that they will be able to produce from an environmental and animal welfare point of view products that will be high on the agenda for all those countries in Asia that will need products in the future".
"We don't want in the future to force a farmer to produce a specific product. I think it is much more important to give the farmer freedom to produce what the market is actually asking for," said Fischer Boel. In this sense, the CAP Health Check was "a step on the path towards a more market-oriented agricultural sector," she said.
Food security
Asked whether Europe should produce more to contribute to world food security, the commissioner said Europe "would be actually able to produce more using new technologies," adding that she is "not afraid of biotechnology".
85-90% of all soybean imports to Europe are already genetically modified (GM). If Europe decided not to accept this, it would lead to "a dramatic reduction in meat production in Europe" and increased imports of meat derived from animals fed with GM crops that are not approved in Europe, explained Fischer Boel.
She believes that biotech crops and new types of enhanced cereal can help developing countries in particular, as these nations experience harsher weather conditions and greater water scarcity problems than the EU.
'Green growth' CAP pillar CAP to address new challenges
Fischer Boel believes that climate change, water management, biodiversity and energy are the four main challenges that the agricultural sector will face in the future and that the CAP needs to "equip farmers to deal with these challenges".
"I don't think that wheat or cereals is the future, but waste from the sector: straw, woodchips, and residues from the slaughterhouses, which can be transformed into renewable energy, such as ethanol and biodiesel," she said.
She argued that farmers need more money to use their raw materials. This could be provided via a "green growth pillar" of rural development policy, she said.
While the future of CAP payments is not yet clear, Fischer Boel believes direct payments will continue, especially in less-favoured areas. These will be topped up with a building block from the rural development policy's 'green growth pillar', which farmers would be free to choose themselves.
The agricultural sector must contribute to the EU's overall goal of reducing CO2 emissions by 20% by 2020, the commissioner stressed. A lot can be done, she said, saying "I'm not that pessimistic about the contribution from the agricultural sector" and even expressing her willingness to discuss an emissions trading scheme for agriculture.
CAP budget
To put CAP budget discussions into the right context, Fischer Boel stressed that people who criticise the policy's total share of the EU budget tend to forget that it is only so high because "it is the only common policy we have". If it were linked to the GDP of the member states, then agriculture's share is only 0.4%, "considerably lower than any budget for defence, health or social policies, for example," she said.
She warned against moves to co-finance the CAP's first pillar with direct payments with member states, which she said would only lead to the renationalisation of EU farm policy. Describing such a move as the "totally wrong decision," she said it would not benefit all farmers in all member states and would "completely spoil" the common farm policy. The CAP is needed to maintain a level playing field and allow equal competition between all EU farmers, she said.
Meanwhile, "a more flat rate distribution of the direct payments" is needed and any reductions of current payments would need a "long transitional period" to allow farmers adapt to the new situation. A large proportion of direct payments has been capitalised on the price of land and without a transition period, "you would be devastating the sector," Fischer Boel said.
CAP subsidies and trade
While the Americans "have a certain interest in hammering the CAP," EU agricultural subsidies are "much much less trade-distorting than the American policy," which is linked to production, Fischer Boel argued.
She also stressed that the Commission has been much more forthcoming in contributing to a positive outcome of the Doha Round of trade talks than the US, which is "not yet ready to deliver".
Failing to get a deal on Doha is "one of the regrets that I have before leaving," Fischer Boel said. Although discussions are still underway, "the next ministerial meeting in early December will not conclude anything," she added
Furthermore, if there is no agreement on the modalities for concluding the Doha Round by the end of March at the latest, "the window of opportunity is gone" and bilateral agreements will take over instead, she added, expressing hope that we will see clear commitments from the US and emerging economies India and China, to which the US wants more market access.
There is nothing wrong with bilateral agreements, she said, but added that "we cannot discipline domestic support in a bilateral agreement". "If we really want to reduce distorting domestic support we need a multilateral agreement," the commissioner said.
