BRUSSELS — It’s Christophe Hansen’s first working day in his new job, and he is sitting nervously by his temporary desk in the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Agriculture with some well-prepared talking points.
The new European Union agriculture and food chief — a farmer’s son who hails from Luxembourg, and from Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s European People’s Party — tells POLITICO he has a clear goal: to help farmers have a better life.
Five years ago, von der Leyen’s first Commission unveiled the flagship Farm to Fork Strategy, an overarching vision “at the heart of the European Green Deal” to green agriculture and food systems.
The strategy included targets to reduce pesticide use; new animal welfare rules; and a nutrition labeling scheme — which were either abandoned or never implemented after a backlash from parties on the right of the political spectrum and Europe’s powerful farming lobbies.
