Position paper on the evaluation of Directive (EU) 2019/633 regarding Unfair Trading Practices in business-to-business relationships in the agricultural and food supply chain
1 September 2025
In this position paper, we join Oxfam, Fair Trade International, the European Milk Board and 14 other organisations calling for the EU to ban a series of unfair trading practices (UTP) in the agricultural and food sector, especially those which force farmers to sell their products below the costs of production.
The paper is particularly important given the EU's planned revision of Directive (EU) 2019/633, combating unfair trading practices in the agricultural and food supply chain.
Specific recommendations include:
- A ban on purchasing below the costs of production, with responsibility extending all the way down the supply chain to retailers
- Protections for farmers against retaliatory de-listing
- A ban on "double-race auctions", used by buyers to place suppliers against each other in short-notice online auctions
- Empowering the EU Agriculture and Food Chain Observatory to collect detailed price and contract data, extending oversight to imported products and collaborating with national and international observers for market transparency
- Improving access to the complains procedure, with a special focus on farmers in countries outside the EU
In the context of European forests, Fern has long advocated for a forestry sector that properly rewards responsible forest management. Over the years, we have built solid links with forestry practitioners to make this case to EU policy-makers. We believe strongly that sustainable production (in any sector) cannot happen unless there is a solid economic case for it, and we are committed to finding and advocating for ways this can work."
Fern has come to support this position based on what we have observed during our many years of work on the cocoa sector, and on the European timber sector. In the cocoa sector, West African farmers selling to the European market are systematically forced to sell below the cost of production, which has fed not only endemic extreme poverty and child labour in cocoa-producing countries, but has also prevented farmers from investing in and renewing their farms, meaning we are now seeing a collapse of cocoa productivity on a global scale. A key driver of the chronically low prices is excessive concentration of market power at the end of the supply chain in Europe, with supermarkets exerting heavy downward pressure on prices. This same phenomenon can also be observed in many European farming sectors, such as milk.
The UTP Directive could help farmers in the cocoa sector if they are selling directly to the European market (the Directive only covers transactions with farmers outside the EU if they are selling directly to an entity based in the EU).
Categories: NGO Statements, Meat consumption
