The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mrs Caroline Spelman)
My right hon. Friend the Minister of State with responsibility for agriculture and food represented the United Kingdom at the Agriculture and Fisheries Council in Brussels on 24 January.
There were three items on the agenda relating to agriculture. Discussion took take place on the following:
Presidency work programme: a routine presentation from the new (Hungarian) presidency of its plans and objectives.
A presentation by the Commission of its analysis of the state of honey bee health and what can be done to improve it. This is an important issue for the UK and we are already undertaking our own programme.
CAP reform: this debate will focus on the issues around natural resource protection and climate change.
There were five items under any other business:
Cross-border infectious animal diseases—a paper from Latvia flagging its action to prevent cross-border transmission of African swine fever from Russia and calling for EU support.
Current dioxin situation in Germany—a report from Germany on their current problems with dioxins in feed and the actions taken. The UK was one of the few member states directly affected (receiving some contaminated eggs).
Situation on the pig meat market—Belgium asking for Commission action to help farmers in the current difficult situation in the pig meat market and the setting up of a pig high-level group.
Foresight project on the future of food and farming—a UK item.
International agricultural markets—an update from the Commission on the current state of global food commodity markets.