00:00The new regulations for agriculture are trying to overhaul the whole system.
00:06I would go as far as saying that they are trying to dismantle the agricultural policy as we knew it
00:12so far.
00:14And there is a lot of focus on food.
00:18And sometimes we forget that agriculture is a very interconnected system of various products.
00:26And they all create a sort of balance between them.
00:31So it's not only about food.
00:32It's also about other agricultural products as well.
00:36I'm coming from a family that was producing for decades cotton.
00:41So that's also part of the agriculture.
00:44And if we are aiming for food security, we have to take into consideration also the whole chain, the whole
00:51agricultural chain, and not just food.
00:55And I don't see that in the intentions so far and the proposals that are for agricultural policy.
01:05It concerns the whole world.
01:07It actually concerns everyone who is not prepared for those kinds of external shocks.
01:15Those kinds of crises will always happen, especially in the current situation, the current geopolitical situation, where it's very fluid
01:23and very sensitive and volatile.
01:26This is exactly why we have to be prepared.
01:29And in order to be prepared, we have to look at agriculture as a whole, as a system.
01:35And we need to be mindful that small changes that we're making in the food chain, the food production chain,
01:43or the non-food products in agriculture, it creates a lot of ripples and a lot of chain reactions.
01:50It seems to me that we are following the same rule book or the same logic that we've done as
02:01Europe in other sectors, where we are basically outsourcing our production and security.
02:09We are outsourcing food security.
02:11We're outsourcing our agricultural chain.
02:13I mean, this creates dependence, and we've seen that this kind of dependence is detrimental for European interests.
02:22I have to talk about Russia and energy.
02:26I mean, this kind of dependence has not been working in the past.
02:30Is this really what we want also for our food security?
02:33Outsourcing this to third parties that are not as dependable as they should be.
02:40So if you take everything into consideration, if you take the Mercosur deal, if you take the new cap, if
02:46you take the TPD directive on tobacco, and if you take other changes in the agricultural chain of production, I
02:56believe that they all point to this sad reality that we are outsourcing our food security.
03:03And this is not the right moment to do that.
