EU agriculture policy must 'evolve' as food prices rise: French PM

(RIGA) - The European Union's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) farm subsidy scheme must evolve in the face of the global food crisis, French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said Friday.

"The (EU's) Common Agriculture Policy is not something frozen, but it must evolve, develop, especially considering the growing prices of food and the deficit of agricultural products," Fillon told reporters in Riga, Latvia, following talks with Latvian counterpart Ivars Godmanis Friday.

"The production of food must become the number one priority of every country, including European (ones)," he said, in the wake of a UN food agency report warning world food production will have to grow 50 percent by 2030.

A generous subsidy scheme for European Union farmers accounting for some 40 percent of the EU's annual budget, the CAP has been blamed by critics as having the effect of artificially inflating food prices and fostering waste on a massive scale.

On Tuesday the European Commission urged a shake-up of Europe's farm sector to crank-up production in the face of soaring food prices, with Britain and France braced for battle over CAP hand-outs to farmers.

Fillon declared Friday that France's six-month tenure of the EU's rotating presidency beginning in July will focus on revising the "health" of the CAP.

"We must also think about the principles, which will govern this policy after 2013," he added.

"Up to now these issues have been resolved in haste, often late at night, in a marathon of negotiations and that could have led to a result that was not always just," Fillon said.

The UN food agency (FAO) said Thursday hunger is likely to increase in poor countries despite record food output in 2008 and the world will have to produce 50 percent extra food by 2030.

The report noted that while the FAO's food price index has remained stable since February, the average for the first four months of 2008 is still 53 percent higher than the same period last year.

Other priorities of the French EU presidency will include European security in line with NATO, energy security and fighting global warming, Fillon said.

The French prime minister was on a working visit to 2004 EU newcomer Latvia Friday for talks with Latvian Prime Minister Ivars Godmanis.

The two government heads signed a protocol on Latvian-French strategic partnership.

The EU partners agreed to intensify political dialogue on energy issues, defence policy and EU-Russia relations.

The partnership agreement signed Friday will be followed up by an action plan, reflecting French President Nicolas Sarkozy's policy to establish closer ties with the eight ex-communist central and east European nations that joined the European Union in 2004, a French diplomatic source told AFP.