(Recording of the ENVI committee meeting in the EP)

Food, health and economic growth are inter-connected issues. It is one of the key challenges to supply people with safe, high quality food while reducing the burden on the environment.

I began a research project in Slovenia through my initiative Požen’ Evropo (Start Up Europe). The aim of the project, called “Food for health and workplaces”, was to raise awareness of the importance of the land and resources that we have in Slovenia, specifically for the case of local food production.

Two of the largest institutes in Slovenia made a study. Based on their results, the purpose of the project was to encourage local production (by gardeners, farmers, etc.) of food by encouraging production of four key types of crops: legumes, garlic, berries and buckwheat. These crops are not only important for the health of the environment and people, but have also been, as statistics show, forgotten and are now largely imported.

The research focused on retrieving and analysing the data for Slovenia. The data then told us how to promote healthy food, to preserve genetic diversity through the conservation of local varieties of plants, to increase self-employment especially among young people, and to ultimately improve the quality of people’s lives and health.

– Health greatly depends on food; has the Commission performed specific studies in this field, and if so what are the key issues?

– Has the impact to health been assessed for those 4 types of crops: legumes, garlic, berries and buckwheat?

– Many people have questions about seed safety. They are worried because of new legislation in this field. Can you tell us the key changes of this new proposal?