Hello, can you hear us? Okay, sorry we our mic wasn't working for a second. So yeah, we'll just announce again what we're doing We are playing today with Designer series paper that we found recently in the front of the Mini catalog. I didn't even know it was there. I thought it was just the same paper You know we care for but why is it why is it such a different so it's here on page four and It's the it's a making a difference Product so it's called a walk in the forest. It's a 12 by 12 pack of designer series paper Double-sided And it it just says For every pack of paper purchased They'll donate $3 Sampen up will donate $3 to support organizations dedicated to spreading chair and providing support to those in need Which is awesome. So we thought we would play with this today. Yeah, we're featuring it and we'll turn the Camera down. Yes. So with this paper there are things that coordinate with it already Yes, so the merriest tree the merriest tree stamp set and dies coordinates with it as well as the very cute stamp set and The punch that goes with that. So we've kind of Aubrey's gonna use that. I'm gonna kind of play with the very cute and Jill's gonna play with the merriest trees and And I've already this really cute paper. I've already cut out some of the The designer series paper and some of the the cool things are look how many trees are in here One two three and then these one the smaller ones and you can even use these half trees that go You know right up to the end of the card, but I love that the bears are already on there in their color I mean you just punch them out. Yeah, I actually I've done a few already so I punched one of those bears out and just Use that DSP. It's just really cute.  Here's another one. This is another piece that comes in there Christmas is better together and I don't know if you can tell but those polar bears are wink of stellid Oh, they are which is always Happy ding are we having issues again? We're good. Okay, so What are you Jill is she cut out some trees?  And the cool thing is is if you want a smaller tree out of the big tree Remember these dies have different sizes So let's say you wanted a smaller tree you could use the smaller one or even smaller than that on that one same tree Yeah, so you get several sizes out of it if you want to and I took the six by six paper and I'm making where it's scored at four inch and this is two right here And this is cut at five and a quarter so you got your six inch, but I'm using this Three of the cards that I'm doing but right now. I'm just using a single piece so Just kind of trying to get the layout here, and I've already got my tree Down up and you could decide oh if I want to do on this side of the designer's paper or that side Like that you can have options What about you Aubrey? Yeah, so I'm doing a tree when I cut these trees out, too But I'm stamping with The this berry Christmas. I'm just gonna do Merry Christmas up in the corner And then I love these little snowflakes that also come in here So I think I might use blue With this so I'm just kind of using the colors that are in and this balmy blue ribbon goes with it So does the garden green ribbon? There's all different kinds of options and this pretty peacock sequins right here can go with it Well, I love the colors all the colors of the green and blues that they used You know the old olive the garden green the pretty peacock. Yeah And just white and bombing the balmy blue so awesome So are you building a scene going? Horizontal and you are yeah, I just thought I'd Add the tree like that Kind of like that maybe a few more snowflakes on here Just popping my tree up the cool thing about these tree dies is you've got other little accessories to help you like the base of a tree right here Little like what do they call these things the ring that goes on the bottom that covers the stand or What are these called? I don't know the little I would just call it the stand is there and for the ring I don't remember what they're called. Maybe somebody knows on maybe. Oh, yeah, let's see a Collar a call that's so the color that okay. That sounds good. Yeah, so we have Ramona Mary Ellen. Oh Good they can hear us now. That's good. I know when we first got on it was kind of like That's It's a good thing we have Beth here because she fixes all those issues for us. Yeah, and I would be pretty lost if you ask We would Open your home is filled with the spirit of the season is what I'm Using this one for it's a cute thing. Yeah, I think so I'm going to try to curl it like And put it up here. I kind of am loving these Rich Colors in this paper. I it's not something I think I normally would choose They're really pretty together That's cute with the Pretty simple the Cherry cobbler. Yeah, yeah Mark is watching everyone say hi to Mark. Hi Mark. Hello Mark. Glad you're watching I'm just gonna take my scissors here and kind of curl this both ways Just gotta be careful that your scissors aren't too sharp because you can actually cut the paper. Yeah so Think I'm going to do it kind of like this Just a little bit Up from there Do I want it down here? I think I kind of like it up there. Oh I love how some of these trees are already ready to go. Mm-hmm. That's what's really nice about this paper is Punching out so you get two sheets of these trees right here And then you get the bears on this one plus the bears on this one so You've got a lot of options on punching out the trees Yeah, super cute. Love it. Love it. Love it. Love it All right, there's that one you can kind of see my snowflakes there in the back. I Think I'll add some Accessories. Oh we have these maybe I'll do some of these sequins. Those are cute. They are cute Be fun on there. Okay. There's my kind of swirly Seat sitting on there Well, but we do my six by six ones kind of already stamped and I'm just going to assemble these now That is super easy. I love designing a series paper that you can use for a different I mean look how cute this is for just a background. Yeah, that would be really cute So that's fun to use the pattern back there, right? I'm going to use the six by six and you know where you score it Across four inches and then you have the two the flap there And I've got a bunch of different things that I could use for For this and not sure how I'm going to do it yet but Some different options I've got the love and joy here I'm going to do that one with a little Banner to these sayings that you know you can fit in a half an inch strip of basic white are Perfect for this particular one So and I stamped this is pretty peacock stamped off right here. Oops Pretty peacock stamped off right here. Oh, yeah, and then I use pretty peacock full strength on that one so I think I want to do this little guy too. Let's see if I'm going to do it this way Maybe I'll pop them up right here Or actually he'll be part of it too Okay, it's kind of hard sometimes when you're placing things and you don't really know where you want them They usually take half of my tree and decide where I'm going to put the things that I'm using for the Dimensionals on there. Oh That's cute So you're using the little polka dots for snow on the bottom. That's yeah, that's what I'm and then you're using the snowflakes on the top cute Trying to Make a little snow drift. That's a good idea. I think I'm just gonna glue him Tree We also have Wendy from the UK.  I'm gonna show that on my next card right here I've got this whole ensemble. I've got it already ready to go I'm gonna take this white strip and put it on the inside So I can stamp on it or somebody can write on it. Oh, yeah You've got okay, I need help. Do I want to have the snowflakes? paper behind Polar bear or do I want just the polka dots? That's hard to say What can I say Always love polka dots I can't decide you guys comment and let me know. Yeah Well, you guys comment. Let me know and I'm going to Beth just handed me this from last week if you remember we were giving away This very Christmas memory and more cards and envelopes that we played with last week if you were here with us and The winner of these is Bobby Fitzgerald 4165 So congratulations Bobby we will Beth will get with you and get that sent out to you Way to go. Yeah. Thank you Beth for handing that to me and Remembering to do it because I would have forgotten Okay, this is stamped on basic white. This is one of the big stamps I've ever had a vote for polka dots. Okay Ramona says polka dots. All right And Jill said and Jill said polka dots. I like polka dots. What can I say? It is a little less busy with the polka dots. That's all right We'll do that I Can't decide I know Now I ran this through I cut it out that I ran it through with the folder. So it's got a little Cool snowflake on it, but I think I'm just gonna use these two colors right here the pretty peacock because of the contrast of the Peacock with the The blue I think is really pretty cool Okay, we've got that and that Now let's see. I've got this little saying also here about the season Let's see. It's long. So I want to make sure I get it on there I want it to come from this side or the other side I think I'm gonna have it come from this side. That's cute Aubrey Thank you Now I'm trying to decide if I want it skinny wampus or straight I Know what Jill would want What would I want? Tell me Jill wants straight Well, I like straight lines. I usually like straight lines, too. Oh, this is cute. Isn't that cute? Yeah Yeah, it's like and you see it's like run through with the snow that folder and I'm I'm blanking out what the name of it is called right at this point probably something snow flakes That's gonna look it up for us like sky snow flakes sky see Okay This is what happens. Do you want to put one of my six by six? Are you still working on yours? Well? I am I'm just Oh, look how cute. Oh, maybe I'll do So did I already do the inside? Oh? I got a little bit of that on let's cut that off a little bit of my Dimensional on the wrong side of the card. I don't want that to stick Okay, so we've got that and I think I'm just gonna do we wish you a Merry Christmas on the inside I cut it out The dye machine with this particular dye just in white and I took the stamp that's in the shape of a tree And just put it on tone on tone So there we go. I love these papers and our designer series paper is so nice That you can get you know away with just using it because it's really nice and that what don't you think that Aubrey? It is I mean, yeah, it's not so you don't you don't have to be Yeah, you know, that's cute. Yes Love that and that's stamped and this is from the paper Just cutting it out from the paper This is stamped right here stamped paper So cute one more There's my other one Now this is this is paper. This is paper These are all paper. I Love this using this six by six method Right here with stripes But I like you I wouldn't look at the peacock as being a color for Christmas, but It's a lot of it's out there. Well, just that those rich colors look Now remember I told you there was some of the Paper hat the trees hanging off So I think I'm going to go ahead and use this tree and just put it right up against the edge So that's what I'm gonna do with that. I'm just gonna put it right down on The cool thing about this is if you decide you want to put it right down the center You can get two trees one on You know per card if you just want to use a half a tree Oh, yeah, my tree. So I'm using the tree and showing me she she took one off of the page Well, it's just like this one right here. Yeah, you can go ahead and use that. It was on the other side of the page I don't know if I have Anymore on that. Yeah, I already used it. It's over here on the actual big page. It's over on this side But that's a yeah, that's a nice way of being able to To use the ones that are cut off.  Yeah, I Love this iridescent White driven to do we have any giveaways for today? I don't know. Do we have any giveaways for today? I can't remember Beth Beth says she hadn't planned on it. Okay, not today not today, but stay tuned Right, yes, maybe next week you've got to get this designer series paper. I just think it's so cool So many different options to use with these trees Yes, it's so fun All right, well, maybe we will Just put two here Should we go ahead and finish up our cards and then we'll finish up our cards and then you could see the picture of them Over on Facebook. Yeah so Beth as always she'll put the link in the description over for our Stamping Jill VIP page on Facebook and you can go and see all of our fun creations that we made today using this Cute, let's see if I can remember it a walk in the forest Yes, designer series paper. Awesome. You got it. So thanks so much for joining us. We'll see you next time. Bye. Bye


Welcome everybody, where you are in Europe or maybe on another continent. Very welcome to this fourth edition of the Green Post-Corona Tanks of the Green European Foundation. I'm Dirk Hollermanns, Co-President of the Foundation, Director of Oricos Green Think Tank in Belgium and host of these talks. Today we will talk about food security and food severity in times of Corona. And as you all have followed the news, we know that our food system is quite in trouble. We have on the one hand poor people not able to get to food. The people waiting, the waiting lines for food, people at food banks are getting longer. On the other hand we have farmers that are not able to harvest what's on their fields, because for instance like in Belgium, the potatoes are meant to export to Russia or also the meat. So it seems that the food system is really in trouble. For discussing this we have three very inspiring speakers. First we will give the floor to Olivier de Schütter. He is one of the members of the international panel of experts on sustainable food systems and also former UN reporter on the right to food. After him we will give the floor to Stanka Pecheva. She is a food and agriculture campaigner at Friends of the Earth Europe. And then we move to the political perspective with Tilly Metz. She is an MEP for the Greens Ava from Luxembourg and member of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety.  For people who are watching this you can put all your questions on Facebook or you can also connect with Twitter to the Green European Foundation. I can see your questions on my computer screen and so in the second part of this session we will have a Q&A with the three persons answering your questions. First as I said I want to give the floor to Olivier de Schütter. Okay well good afternoon to all and many thanks for introducing this presentation with these four voices to discuss the future food systems in the post-COVID world. I'd like to start by simply drawing our attention to the fact that this crisis shows how our food systems are in fact fragile despite the impression that they create that they are robust. Today we have in fact a very solid production from the past harvest. The global food reserves are at their highest. 275 million tons of food are ready to be used and distributed but the food systems are nevertheless under threat for three reasons. First of all we have a number of countries who have announced certain export restrictions. Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, for wheat, Vietnam, for rice for example in total a dozen countries have done so. It is not yet impacting the prices but should such export restrictions develop at a larger scale it may put pressure on markets and create some some panic on the markets as we had seen in 2008. So that is one first source of concern. When we have whole regions countries that depend on imports to satisfy their needs, when these regions countries produce very little of what they consume and produce essentially in order to export we may be at risk of supply chains being cut as a result of restrictions to export so indeed ports for example not being able to function well. So that's the first concern. A second concern is that as schools have closed in many countries as restaurants, cafes are not functioning anymore quite a few producers particularly small-scale producers who depend on these outlets to sell their production find themselves unable to access markets and indeed some producers who do produce for export face a break in supply chains and Dirk Holamans mentioned the case of potato production in Belgium for example and are unable again to to sell the stocks that they have accumulated and so what we will see in the next few weeks are important food losses resulting from the breakdown of supply chains resulting from the lockdowns of certain regions with the schools and restaurants shut down in particular. This is why for example in Belgium and France ministers have called for farmers to be allowed to privately conserve their meat reserves or their dairy products in order to avoid everything going to waste. A third challenge which is probably in the next few weeks going to be the most important has to do with the travel of seasonal migrant workers that we need in order to harvest production in the next few weeks and months. The UK for example requires 60,000 seasonal farm workers. It's 150,000 in the country such as the Netherlands or in Spain. It is in Germany 300,000 people that are needed and most of this workforce comes in Europe from Bulgaria from Romania sometimes from Poland. Poland itself imports seasonal workers from Ukraine and this seasonal migration of farm workers is now made impossible as a result of the restrictions on on travel and so this explains why for example DJ Guillaume the French Minister of Agriculture has called upon volunteers to lend a hand to the farmers in France and those who are under temporary unemployment students for example have been asked to support farmers to harvest their crops and some 200,000 people have responded to this call. So it is a very striking brick in the way the food systems normally that this temporary seasonal migration of farm workers has been interrupted. So for me the provisional lesson to be drawn is very simple. Our food systems have been shaped in order to maximize efficiency and efficiency means specialization of regions into certain types of production. A limited range of foods are produced by each region each country. This allows economies of scale by the development of large monocropping schemes that are easy to mechanize and it allows the division of international labor if you wish that is meant to stimulate efficient production but that search for efficiency has now become a source of fragility and we need to invest in different food systems in shorter food chains in localized food systems that are much more resilient and resilience means diversity it means producing more of what you consume it means producing a diversity of foods in order to be less dependent on imports and it means types of production that can be less affected by sanitary crisis by climate crisis environmental crisis or by economic crisis in a system such as one we inherit from in which each region depends on many others to satisfy the needs of the population any break in global supply chains can create havoc on the markets can lead to price increases that can be troubling particularly in times of economic recession for low income families and it is exactly that scenario that we must try to avoid. I close with a last sentence which is that today governments have become aware of these pressures on the food systems and they're trying to improvise short-term solutions to allow the system to function better for example Germany has allowed farm workers to travel from Romania and Bulgaria in order to ensure that the harvest will be able to to take place in in good conditions but these short-term measures to revamp the existing system should not delay action on the long-term measures we need we need to adopt to move to more sustainable more resilient and indeed more local food systems and that was the whole philosophy behind the proposals of the international panel of experts on sustainable food systems, IPA's food developed together with a large number of organizations in Europe including including Friends of the Earth Europe for a food policy for the EU a food policy that would that would be the objective of a multi-year transition plan that should be organized at European level and that should gradually allow us to move away from this efficient but fragile food system we inherit from to something that is much more resilient so I will stop there and I look forward to our discussion with many thanks for you all for Jordy. Okay Olivier thank you for this introduction maybe already a first question because it's a kind of question you read a lot let's say the defenders of agro business they are telling or defending themselves with the argument that if you move to more small scale and low production you will that will be less efficient and so there will be much less production of foods so what's your answer to this I think there is a huge confusion around this small scale farms smaller size farms are usually highly efficient in the way they use the surface of land that they have under cultivation and indeed the resources land water at their disposal however these small farms are more labor intensive they create employment which many people would say is a very good thing particularly in times of of mass unemployment however it means that these small farms are less competitive on global markets in which all farmers compete with one another at least within the internal market in the U but even more broadly in in the global markets so these small farms are highly efficient in the use they make of resources they are very productive per hectare however they are less competitive because they demand more labor per output right so the labor productivity is worse on these small farms and indeed large monocloping schemes can very easily substitute women and men with machines in order to develop large large scale production but for a number of reasons which are agronomic the need to have soil health preserved by diversified farming systems for reasons that are related to the quality of nutrition we need a diversity of foods produced in order to to feed the community with adequate diets and for reasons that have to do with the development of the rural economy it is much better to have smaller size farms that are more labor intensive and are much better at managing the natural resources the problem is yes this has price implications and so until we move away from the paradigm of the low-cost food economy in which we artificially repress the price of food for the for the families and until we take seriously the the the need to to provide support to the farmers who provide ecosystem services preserve agro biodiversity preserve and soil health and and manage the ecosystems adequately and until we dare have this discussion it will be indeed very difficult to make a transition and big agribusiness companies the big players in in the food systems who bet on economies of scale and on logistics in global supply chains they will all always have a strong argument to delay action towards such a transition okay thanks for this important reaction which made clear that small scale farmers are in a way much more productive and much more taking care of the soil and the environments I now want to give the floor to Stanka Becheva a campaigner at Friends of the Earth Europe who of course from an NGO perspective is also looking at the crisis of the current food system and also I would say has a critical look on how the European Commission is dealing with this issue so thank Stanka please I'm curious to hear your contribution and also from my side I hope you are sitting comfortably on your sofa or kitchen table or wherever you are the last two months I think have been very very dynamic and challenging for many of us in different ways for some of us less for others more and I think really a lot more now visible is the current food system and the challenges that it has as it's been mentioned already already by Olivier just to say Friends of the Earth it's a environmental and social justice environmental grassroots network we have members in 30 European countries and one of the issues we're working on is food and farming so yes definitely we've been observing and and looking at this very fast developments in the in the last of the last two months um Olivier said already a lot of what I wanted to say I was gonna just add maybe first part of what I was gonna talk about is the analysis which was done more or less the second one what has been the response and the third one is what is our response as Friends of the Earth since Olivier focused on the challenges maybe I want to say that obviously there are a lot of challenges but we're seeing also a lot of positive things happening with that crisis and I like looking at it from an urban and a rural perspective a little bit because my family it's a rural family they're farming at the moment while we here in cities are sitting and not knowing what to do in the evening and kind of looking for zoom calls with friends and so on a lot of of the work is happening just now on the fields so starting from April until October this is the really really busy period of for for farming so again looking at the perspective from urban and rural we see a lot of us look down and really a lot of restrictions here on the other side in the in the rural areas on the fields this is now when when the work is starting and and having the crisis right now I think it's increasing a lot even this problems I will not go now into the problems which have been mentioned just maybe on the positive sides for us as as urban people I don't know if you've seen a survey from the UK shows that people are now cooking more from scratch restaurants are closed we heard that people cannot go and eat out eat out so 40 percent of people said they valued food more and around 38 percent said that they're cooking more often from scratch so this is for example something which I think it's if it was like really fantastic and we should think about and I think it's making us rethink a little bit the way how we how we consume on a positive side maybe on the rural side of things a lot of the challenges have been mentioned already farm workers missing the market for certain products completely kind of crashing and so on but on the positive side what we hear from our members and organizations we work with is that there's very increased interest in community supported agriculture people want to buy food from consumers direct from the producers directly we have two of our members who are running facilitating a food farmers map where they can directly the farmers with the consumers and this has been a huge boom recently I just read from Greece from an organization we work with as well that they started a very kind of a hot campaign with with some citizens to promote the direct contact between farmers and consumers and this is going apparently also well so I think we need to think and kind of keep in mind that they are all trans which are showing us a lot of positiveness to add to that maybe a solidarity action I heard of in Romania where farmers again are exchanging seeds in this difficult situation and obviously the situation is very fluid so it's been two months now which felt like a whole kind of year maybe right and it will be even more in terms of what been the political reaction very quickly also just selecting some of the issues so what we heard already in March I think it was the WTO the FO saying calling on governments to not restrict trades and food supplies I think that's been one of the first kind of reactions we heard and G20 of agricultural ministers just some 10 days ago or something actually confirmed that they are not going to do this what we are seeing as well that also Olivier mentioned they've been while general travel restrictions we saw governments making assumptions on on people who are working in farming to travel by plane and making sure that these people who are missing on fields are kind of filled through this what we've seen as well what I've seen in Bulgaria I don't know my country the government has obliged supermarkets to sell local foods which is something quite quite exceptional so they didn't introduce a travel restriction or trade restrictions but they obliged the supermarkets to actually sell the local products to ensure that the products produced in the country are staying on the on the market and I'm sure there are a lot of other exemptions in other countries as well what's happened on the several reactions from the European Commission starting already at the end of March and the last one was actually just two days ago when the European Commission has announced a number of measures starting from administrative changes to when payments can be can be registered to some reduced on spot checks two then 10 days ago to come up with a 80 million package which is supposed to be given to European farmers to support certain sectors and that's again for certain sectors like milk meat sector was mentioned already wine olive oil and one other thing which is not strictly to agriculture but I think it will also be interesting to look at is the upcoming MFF plus as they call it basically the recovery package of the European union which kind of reacting to the crisis which will also give some some directions of how the European Union is reacting generally to the economic crisis but also what's happening in agriculture at the same time we know there are several political reforms and policies still perform we mentioned so several of those have been delayed and we don't know where they will go at the moment maybe just last briefly then to say what's our response as friends of the earth has been as I said we've been following those will also react to the MFF plus and to several other developments which will be then coming as response from the European Commission we think that since the crisis it's a it's a worldwide one it really needs to um requires uh in solidarity for for the common interest and our lifestyles have been mentioned they have created within the perfect um the perfect conditions for this virus to spread and that's why we think that we need to generally rethink our consumption travel patterns we need to rethink the way and then really think of of different ways to actually tackle all these very important lifestyle decisions which have led to a lot of these problems we also think that we need to rethink the whole fragile economic system which right now it's it's it's showing really the inequalities in different places of what's what's been kind of mentioned in it's it's an european response specifically to agriculture Olivier has mentioned already several elements maybe just to say on the short term we need to really see reactions to the situation of agricultural workers on the fields because what's happening um at the moment with their conditions is really um unacceptable and there needs to be a immediate reaction health and housing conditions for them and on the longer term completely agree with Olivier we need to think of transitioning the food system and all these policies I just mentioned before need to be really rethought in the way that they can don't they contribute to this to this objective um and to kind of maybe close up I want to say that we we hope that we can keep up the solidarity the hope and the actions going and as we did in an action for the 17th of April the International Day of Peasant Struggle the hashtag was stay home but not silent so this is what we're trying to do and that's why contributing to this workshop as well okay many thanks staying home but not silent I think it's indeed the perfect way of also looking at these talks um Tilly Metz your member of the european parliament your member of the committee on environment public health and food safety you will have been following the policies of European Commission very closely so how do you look at them are you taking the right measures is it going fast enough yeah good afternoon everybody from Luxembourg thanks for inviting me I'm very glad to be to be among you let me first say as an introduction that for the greens the whole food system is not only in a crisis since the pandemic COVID-19 but for us it is clear that the system is insane since a long time ago but it's true that the pandemic crisis we endure right now makes it even more obvious and shows also the fragility of the EU food security in a sanitary crisis even if the EU is a net exporter and has a wide variety of soil and climate conditions we have now serious problems and tensions surrounding the food production because of the disruption of the strenght and diarrhea and the introduction of these green lanes didn't not really resolve completely or entirely this issue what we have why I say it's a crisis already for long time now we have these long queues at the borders we have enormous suffering of animals during transport we are importing GMO feed from south and so genetically modified organism feed from south and north america so contributing to differentiation we have industrial farming with a lot of antibiotics and pesticides and this industrial farming is then also a vector of catagenes and so contributing to zoonosis and the loss of biodiversity we have an overproduction of meat and barbie and an underproduction of vegetables and fruits in many countries and we have and it was already said also bad treated seasonal workers and I could go on like this so the agriculture is at the same time contributing and suffering from pandemics and climate change which did not disappear during this time threatening our food production and influencing the spread of pathogens so let me just start by sharing some points of the green position the greens have always been there to say let's find farms not big factories and let's protect biodiversity and this is still true now coming to propose solution for most sustainable and resilient food system as a reaction of the COVID-19 increase let me talk about a few files that are really of importance right now and it was already said in the european parliament all eyes are now focused on the green deal which is a european strategy to be the first climate neutral continent and comprises a set of policies proposals to make the youth economy sustainable and to be climate neutral by 2050 while some conservatives and liberal see this more as a threat to short time to short term saving rebuilding the existing economy including the agri sector others such as the greens sees this green deal as an absolutely necessary piece of legislation more than ever now one of its objective is designing a set of deeply transformative policies which includes food and agriculture and it was already said we're speaking about the farm to fork strategy which is an important part of this green deal and it implies the whole food chain so its goal is really to protect the environment to address climate change to preserve biodiversity as well as contributing to circular economy and preventing food waste together with the farmers who are really in the forefront of this agricultural ecological transition we need more resilient less resource intensive and less input dependent food system and therefore we need other ecology including organic farms so commission's proposal for the farm to fork strategy should have been presented in the end of march in the postponed now it is postponed we hope as Timmerman said not for months but for weeks and it's now scheduled for the end of May leaks are partly promising I must say less pesticide action plan for organic farming livestock farming should be reduced integrated food policy that involves the whole full supply chain but for our screens nevertheless it's a lack overall of ambition for example there is no paradigm shift in the common agriculture policy or in the common fishery policy and it even contains some ruined parts when thinking of that the directive on the GMOs of the genetically manipulate organism should be reopened and let's see how concrete they really will address the problem the issue of reducing meat consumption so as a caps the common agriculture policy of the European Union has its origin and it was already said by Olivier at a time where food was scarce and therefore for me the focus was really on high production output today though our main concerns are many and the question is not only how to allow to have a secure food supply for all the Europeans but also how to make the agriculture sector part of the solution against climate change against the loss of biodiversity rather than part of the problem so at the beginning of 2020 Timmerman said and I was quite happy of it we need a comprehensive assessment of the common agricultural policy versus green deal by the commission that was good but now with the COVID crisis there was no follow-up of this idea the cut is always for seven years for 21 normally should have been from 21 to 27 and it mentioned to be future oriented more than the the predecessors and also take environmental concerns into account especially as it is the farmers that are suffering the most from for example droughts brought by climate change the new commission had a proposal in June 2018 which was already of a new common agriculture policy which was already quite late when you think there were election in May 2019 so this file has now three sub files that the big one is the strategic plans regulation then we have the common market organization and then we have the horizontal regulation we are the reporter for the green in the Agri because I'm also in the Agri committee over there so I'm mainly working on the horizontal regulation the parliament still had time for committee voting in april 2019 where we had quite a good text in the envy committee but was quite lost then in the Agri committee like this often the case now after the election the commission did not propose a new common agriculture policy because you would have sought with 70% of new members of the european parliaments they also could have said okay with all these new members we need now a new proposal there are partially in the committees the negotiations are going on in agri agricultural committee environment committee they are still ongoing but yes we have now an entry reporter who seems to be less ambitious that the one primers and the plenary vote of the new agriculture of the new cap this vote should be probably at the end of 2020 and also then again with quite a lot of amendments so and we feel the risk that it's not going in the right change we would like as greens to do it so we won't have a new common agriculture policy until the end of 2020 so there we are now in a two period transition period and before I give you an overview of the various COVID-19 reactions let me just say a few words on the genetically modified organism because some big industries they might say this in the after COVID-19 to see this as a solution so the genetically modified organism are there to support high quantities of pesticides for example soya beans and mice and we import them as I said already from north and south america to feed to 95 percent our farm animals so it's not for human consumption mostly why do I mention that as I said already because some people after the COVID-19 crisis might say this might be a solution this genetically modified organism but instead of genetic modification and monocultures we need genetic diversity and we finally need to proceed to progress on a protein plan for Europe including a local protein plan also for human consumption so let me for to finish give an overview of the various COVID-19 reactions we have at the level of the EU institution so the commission and it was already set by Stankham is advocates financial support for the agri food sector and fisheries with right now no green strategy behind it a big issue for the commission and it was also already mentioned by the end of the year does not seem to be willing to stop over production but it advocates private storage measures and also financing them which is not really also solving the problem because it's still on the market then later on and the prices are going still to fall so one positive news here is that the commission of agriculture was Schofsky is starting to publicly acknowledge the benefits of shorter and more sustainable food change so that's a good point but the EPP so the conservatives and parts of the new liberals so the political parties more on the right they keep saying how resilient the European food system has proven to be but at the same time they ask the postpone the green deal and the farm to fork strategy they want to have more budget even outside the common agricultural policy for crisis strike and farmers they want to use reserve that is 400 million crisis reserve and this should be activated they said and now they are of course also saying we need more relaxed rules for farmers including also more relaxed environmental stand guards and I'm sad to say but Portugal seems to be in the same position and I'm afraid that now other member states might my following that direction but for the greens and I say clearly it's a huge opportunity for change now or never to reorientate our food relevant policies and to make them align with our environmental ambitions and go so we have a recovery plan which I invite you to check but food production and it was already said today must be resort local at a local level without needing to import massive feed from overseas and also the large majority and I really think that large majority and it was set by Stankatu of the citizens stand behind these ideas they want healthy food and more well-being for animals which was also proven by the european citizen initiative signed by more than a half and a million and a half people and the cage age so people want also well-being for animals they want healthy food they want us to fight the loss of biodiversity and to fight climate change so our targets are clear no postponement please of the green deal and the farm to fork strategy the comprehensive assessment of the common agricultural policy and the common fishery policy considering also all the coasts externalities due to the storing our natural resources or polluting the environment and of the proposed policies and we need them adjustment of course what we games really want is a paradigm shift in this whole agriculture policy moving from a hectare based subsidies a quantity approach to a more quality based approach allowing the farmers to live with dignity and contributing to the sovereignty sovereignty of our food system and the protection of the environment to conclude please let me highlight that this crisis is also a result how we treat our resources how we treat our land how we treat animals where we share the planet with so I hope I really hope that we are all learning from this crisis and making the right conclusions for the next generations we can only ensure food security if we learn to respect and to work within our planetary and regional natural boundaries and this will only be possible in a participative approach with the farmers by giving them new opportunities to work in order to maintain and restore our common goods I hope I'm still in 10 minutes thank you for listening well Tilly thank you very much for this really clear analysis of the current state of affairs at the level of the European policy and how the Greens look upon it and I'm very happy that meanwhile we already have several questions coming in and I would invite the people that are posing questions to write from which country you are so you can also share how many people from different countries are in this dialogue I have a first question for Olivier asking has a question on how should we tackle the issue of food waste as a big share of harvests are still destroyed before it comes to the market or before we can eat it so how to deal with the issue of food waste thank you for the question I think it's a very important aspect of the general discussion we have as as Tilly Metz was saying we have emphasized for many years in fact since the start of the common agricultural policy the need to increase production in order to make sure that we keep prices affordable for the consumer and be today here are many calls in times of resource scarcity that we need to develop new technologies including GMOs in order to increase the level of production to keep up with demographic growth and changing demand but we do not act sufficiently on this huge question of food waste and globally but the figures are similar for Europe we waste about 30 percent of the food that is produced now of course in developing countries the the waste takes place primarily at the farm level because of poor logistics and no facility to store the food in right conditions in Europe it's primarily a problem of food being processed in the agri-food industry chains with many lots of food being wasted at that end and at the end of the of the consumer on supermarket shelves and and so on and it is a significant issue given the resources it takes to produce all this food that is wasted now one approach that has been favored in many countries to address this is to encourage supermarket chains to negotiate with charities and GMOs providing food aid to families in need in order to make sure that the unsold food items those that the supermarkets have not sold on time can be provided to these these families in need and there is even a law adopted in France on this initially in 2016 and then revised in in 2019 in other countries it's local municipalities that make the opening of new supermarkets conditional upon such agreements being found with NGOs the problem with this approach is that it describes food aid as a permanent solution to food insecurity for families in need which i think is not acceptable we should not see food aid as a substitute for robust social protection schemes and more importantly it does not discourage the supermarkets the large retailers from managing the food stocks and the flows in a more efficient manner so overproduction is not even addressed as an issue and instead of supermarkets being sanctioned for having too many items that remain unsold supermarkets in fact are helped to get rid of their surpluses by these charities stepping in to take these surpluses from the from the shelves of supermarkets and delivering them to families in need so i believe we need um a much more robust approach to this issue by taxing food waste in other terms by ensuring that supermarkets who have not managed well their food stocks shall have to pay in order to compensate for the damage caused the resources misused if you wish and and and that is the best way to to avoid overproduction and and the and the mismanagement of flows and and and finally i think we need to educate the public much better about the indications we find on on foods that are sold in supermarkets concerning the the sell by dates and the best before dates i think there are many misunderstandings concerning this and that um all too often um um simply providing better information to the consumer and and ensuring that the families act more responsibly in this regard can make a significant difference thank you okay thank you for this answer i think indeed if one third of our food is wasted this is uh amount and and tackling this issue will solve quite some problems already i have a second question i for stanka which i think is quite interesting it's around the concept of suit sovereignty uh someone writes it's a tricky concept in times of crime isn't it because it may invoke that uh because of food sovereignty nations maybe will close the border with creating food sort sorts in other countries so how do you react to this question thanks for that question um so the concept friends of the one of the organizations together with Via Campesina who is supporting the concept of this as the right of people um to have access to affordable and and healthy food so when we talk about food sovereignty we're not necessarily talking about uh closing um border having any trade at all this is not at all what we mean with with with the concept of food sovereignty what we mean with it is really giving the opportunity uh to um to regions to um locations to countries to be able to decide what and and how um they are going to produce so obviously this um has been maybe used now from from people to describe well to close borders and to um not um not allow any and so on this it is not what we mean i think um what i read in i don't know if Olivier mentioned this now but um in several papers we saw obviously now in this crisis to close the borders would mean that a lot of people will uh be not able to uh to have access to food so on a short term especially now it's actually important to keep the uh the the food flow the the trade um still going but on a longer term work towards what um i think also Tilly described always a different system where uh we don't need to at all uh think about these problems because uh we will have a different production where the needs of a certain location of a certain region is being i've been covered by the production which is there i hope that answers yeah okay thank you very much we have a next question for Tilly concerning the agro ecological farmers community the person who writes the question says that it seems that these agro ecological farmers are less present in the debate how come they are not really influencing what's on the political agenda what's their position in terms of concrete ideas and proposals yes so what is very important indeed and i mentioned it in in my presentation it's really to have a participate a participative approach so that people different people and different experts and different people also from the terrain from the ground who are really experiencing also what it means uh to have to practice the agro ecology or the organic farming and that they can show as Olivier the shooter was also saying that they are even more productive and that they create jobs jobs and which for me is very important too if you make an um it's a few years old but i was they were asking the farmers if they were satisfied with their life with their work and there is really a big difference between the organic farmers and the others who are much more happy with what they do who feel more recognized by the society and i think it's very important to have different farmers conventional and also the one from the agro ecology around one table so that they can exchange best practices and that we can contribute to give somehow back their their dignity also to the farmers because they feel now okay now we are the guilty ones also from the climate change sex without a loss of biodiversity but they also also part of the solution so i think it's very important that we have the different promise around the table and that we have really the farm to folk strategy and there is in it that they there should be really an action plan to more organic farming and there really we have to rear more the voice of all the people from this domain from the agro ecology and the person who said that is completely white i would like to hear them much more too and that they experience about the positive sides also of this transition from conventional agriculture to more organic agriculture and what it brought them but of course it's probably linked with a lot of fears and especially when you have a common agriculture policy policy who is really still that the more hectares you have the more money you get i say it in a very simplified way but it's it's still like that even now the new common agriculture policy the main pillar is still on that so it's very hard for them to make this switch if they don't feel supported by policy by politicians so we really need if we want this ecological transition in our food chain we really have to make also concrete measures to support the farmers and especially give more voice to the ones who made this switch yes okay thanks for this answer may i add to this two sentences dirck of course i think actually met said is really important and i'd like to simply add that when in france when at the time minister stéphane le fault was the charge of agriculture in the under the presidency of france orland they adopted a law in 2012 on the future of agriculture food and forests that sought to encourage agroecology this was in 2012 and it did not work perfectly well for two reasons first because when you switch from conventional farming to agroecology it takes two or three years before you can actually create a well-functioning agroecological diversified farming system and during that period of time you may suffer a loss of revenue so it's important that farmers are protected from that risk and that financial instruments are developed to support them during that transition in other terms it cannot be done overnight and secondly it's important to realize that nothing of significance can happen at the level of production at the level of the farm without the other segments of the chain being examined we need new marketing opportunities we need schools and in general public catering services to source from these farmers practicing agroecology we need short food circuits to be developed in order to give them opportunities to sell their produce which the big players the big agri food companies are not interested in buying and so there are a number of conditions to the switch to agroecology that go beyond just the level of production thank you okay there was a question which comes closely to this so I will put it on the table it's the question on which transition we envisage for commercial catering and corporate food supplies as these are the most affected by the lockdown and how can we support them to switch to more local and seasonal supplies so Olivier you can continue on this question I think it's an important point there is clearly a change in the expectations of the public just 15 years ago people were most interested in having access to cheap food without much attention being paid to the to the quality of the food and to the um the nutritious qualities in particular now they care about the environmental impacts they care about the rights of the farm workers and they care of course about where the food comes from the problem is they don't always have this information and the there was a proliferation of labels that makes it very difficult for consumers to express their preference as well in Tiralia when they go to to restaurants and and so on so I think what we really need to do is to develop tools that can allow the food catering industry that sources from local farmers and that prioritizes farmers who who produce organic food or or food produced according to agricultural methods to be rewarded by by the end eater and I think also it's important in many countries schools are trying to shift for example to local organic farmers and they meet two problems one the legal framework on public procurement public contracts is still not allowing to prioritize local food producers there are a number of flexibilities allowed to public collectivities but not to prioritize local producers and I think there is a mismatch between the the legal framework adopted at EU level and what local local entities wish to do the second problem is sometimes there is more demand for local and organic and and too little supply farmers are unable to to to switch on time to match this increased demand so we need perhaps to have a transition and to and to have schools and and public administrations and first source maybe 30 percent from organic farmers and then move to you know 50 percent in two years and then 60 percent in five years etc we need to do this gradually in order to allow production and consumption to adapt gradually to this transition we're calling for okay thanks Stanka I have a question for you you spoke in your introduction between the different realities of the urban and the rural people in the urban being at their houses and farmers working very hard there's also a growing interest in what is called urban agriculture you think this can be part of the new agricultural system or is it more just something recreational I definitely think that urban agriculture can be part of the the transition and not only in the city itself in the periphery I think when we talked about foot waste and and and making food chains much shorter it important aspect to think about really fitting the city from what it can produce itself and also what it the farmers around are producing so there's so many different examples I'm part of a food cooperative which here in Skarbek which gets products from a farmer just 10 kilometers away we have several urban gardens here in in Brussels as well where people also meet the city of Brussels has a good food plant which actually brings together all aspects together not only the gardening but also what is in some of the canteens different projects that are brought around and I think several other cities are doing this as well so definitely bringing cities to act on this it's it's a very important part of the whole action and since we are finishing I just want to talking about action to call to everyone to be active if they're interested in this issue we've been working on this since years and we have created the good food good farming campaign which is ongoing and is trying to change the food system so if that caught your interest or if you're interested already we are planning an action starting on the 12th of May asking people to act towards the European Parliament to change the cut reform that has been just talked about so again call to action yeah spread the word don't be silent if if I may just add I was I just wanted to say that we are almost finishing but I really would allow all three of you to have this kind of final message what's your top priority what's really we have to how we should use this crisis this momentum now to make this change happening so Tilly please go ahead no I just wanted to add well so what Stanka was saying that it's very important for the politicians that we have these NGOs that we have the citizens that we have the the scientists who who support now with actions with making them hurt like we do this afternoon for that we have this real change because we have in future if we want to avoid pandemics if we want to fight the loss of biodiversity and climate change we also need this ecological transition in agriculture and this goes not by politician ditz needs the support of everybody of the farmers of the citizens it's like Olivier said it's at every level that somebody can do something in order to have this ecological transition in agriculture thank you okay please Olivier what's for you the priority number one Mike thank you this is a unique moment for European integration the amount of that is going to be poured that is being poured into the economy by governments is entirely unprecedented in in times of peace at least 4 000 billion euros will be injected into the economy to support businesses and it's really important that this money goes to the ecological transition and that we do not see economic reconstruction first and then environmental considerations to come later because they would be of minor importance so let us really be very attentive to what shall happen in the next two weeks because it's now that the next 10 15 years economic landscape shall be decided thank you okay and I still said the most vibrant part of our democracy is civil society I also want to give the last word to what maybe also from a personal point of view what would be your priority number one I said already well again an invitation to action very important that everyone who can engage at the moment engages in solidarity because again that's a it's a it's a problem for all of us and and we need to really act in solidarity to solve this problem all together otherwise it will come back and it will be even harder than this time so thanks a lot for listening and being part of this discussion okay many thanks I know one hour is quite short to have three people but they're all three were very concise so I want to thank you all three for this great talk there were many points discussed on the civil society level the political level in different countries and so for people watching us if you appreciate talks please also see whether you could make a donation because small the information is now put in the chat would be really very good and of course we will proceed with these green talks and next week we will talk about the future of work and the week after probably about the future of mobility so many time many thanks for watching us and I would say stay safe and have a nice rest of the day bye bye thank you for listening bye


into our revenue service IRS tax news IRS provides further details on additional relief for certain partnerships preparing schedules K-2 and K-3 for 2021 IR 2022-38 February 16 2022 Washington the IRS today provided further details on additional transition relief for certain domestic partnerships and S corporations preparing new schedules K-2 and K-3 to further ease the change to their new schedules those eligible for the relief will not have to file the new schedules for tax year 2021 the new schedules K-2 and K-3 improve reporting by standardizing international tax information to partners and flow through investors making it easier for them to report these items on their tax returns in addition the changes ease flow through return preparation compliance by clarifying obligations and standardizing the format for reporting notice 2021-39 there's a link to that notice here provides penalty relief for good faith efforts to adopt the new schedules today's transition relief appearing in new frequently asked questions the FAQs on schedule K-2 and K-3 there's a link to that here allows an additional exception for tax year 2021 filing requirements by certain domestic partnerships and S corporations the IRS is providing an additional exception for tax year 2021 to filing the schedule K-2 and K-3 for certain domestic partnerships and S corporations to qualify for this exception the following must be met and tax year 2021 the direct partners in the domestic partnership are not foreign partnerships foreign corporations foreign individuals foreign estates or foreign trusts in tax year 2021 the domestic partnership or S corporation has no foreign activity including foreign taxes paid or accrued or ownership of assets that generate have generated or may reasonably expect to generate foreign source income C section 1.861-9 G3 in tax year 2020 the domestic partnership or S corporation did not provide to its partnership or shareholders nor did the partners or shareholders request the information regarded on the form or attached there to line 16 form 1065 schedule K and K-1 line 14 form 1120 S and line 20 C form 1065 schedule K and K-1 controlled foreign corporations passive foreign investment companies 1120-F section 250 section 864 C 8 section 721 C partnerships and section 7874 line 17D for form 1120 S the domestic partnership or S corporation has not has no knowledge that the partners or shareholders are requesting such information for tax year 2021 if a partnership or S corporation qualifies for this exception the domestic partnership or S corporation does not need to file schedule K-2 and K-3 with the IRS or with its partners or shareholders however if the partnership or S corporation is subsequently notified by a partner or shareholder that all or part of the information contained on schedule K-3 is needed to complete their tax return then the partnership or S corporation must provide the information to the partner or shareholder if a partner or shareholder notifies the partnership or S corporation before the partnership or S corporation files its return the conditions for the exception are not met and the partnership or S corporation must provide the schedule K-3 to the partner or shareholder file the schedule K-2 and K-3 with the IRS so it's just it's clear as it's clear as can be I'm sure to everybody here if you want to look at that in more detail we will have links to this in the description and you can you could get you could dive into the details if you think this is going to be applicable to your S corporation and what not and and so you could start your research here last line here the IRS welcomes additional comments on schedule K-2 and K-3 this feedback and inquiries can be sent to you and there's a area you could send to the email address so again if you're if this is applicable to you you're probably going to need to dive down a little bit more and check into it and see see what's going on with it if it's going to be applicable to you and there'll be a link to this in the description


angedigwm yn Notana. Good afternoon everyone Let's take a look at this. The fourth meeting of 2016 of the public petitions committee can ask everyone to switch off any electronic devices, telephone, anger easily etc etc, as they interfere with the sound system. Apologies for being received this morning from David Torrance, so I welcome Jim Eey of the island Selzy, as his substitute this morning. We have one item on our agenda this morning, consideration of continued petitions. The first of which by Dr Lisa Morton on behalf of the Scottish Adult Congenital Heart patients on Scottish Standards for the Care of Adult Congenital Heart patients. Members have all the documentation that we've received in pursuing this. We have been pursuing it for some period of time. It looks as though we're just now waiting on the outcome of the report and the petitioner has been involved in that consultation. I think so. I don't think there's much more we can do with this one, so the member agree that we close this. John, just to comment, the petitioner has indicated that she's now been invited to sit on the Scottish Congenital Cardiac Services board and the working group, tasked with developing the standards. I think that it has been a success for the committee that have taken on board the petition and hopefully wish her the best in influencing the way forward for the services. I think that that is a real outcome for this petition and it certainly has taken the issue forward and I think that's what the petitioner wanted to see happen. We can close that one having achieved something. The next one is PE 1458 by Peter Cherby on a register of interest for members of Scotland's judiciary. We have now written to the new Lord President that his position is not any different from the outgoing Lord President, but we did invite the outgoing Lord President to come and discuss it with us. I wonder if the committee might want to extend the same invitation to the new Lord President to see an exploration of the issue, because I think that there is still a live debate around this. I'm certainly reluctant to close it without having exhausted the discussion around this and examined almost the destruction, but we seriously have to ask questions around it and open to suggestions from colleagues. I think that there is still a debate, because obviously the judicial complaints reviewer was the one who initially indicated a change in tack in that one. Where we can take it and whether it should be us, I'm not sure. Lord Calaway has been, as the new Lord President has been quite clear. It seems to me that it's really whether anybody else wishes to pick up on it, because other than asking the new Lord President the same questions as the old Lord President, given that we've already got it in writing, I don't know where that takes us and it's whether the Justice Committee or the Scottish Government wish to pursue it, and certainly my recollection is about six months since we heard from the minister, but there was no indication of any change in perspective. I think that the only question that arises is whether there still are issues to be debated, and I think that it would be useful to get the new Lord President's views on the record. The question is whether we, as an outgoing committee, extend that invitation or do we put it in our legacy paper so that the next committee can pick up and run with it? The legacy paper on the basis that, given that we are reasonably fulsome letter from Lord Calaway, squeezing him in within the next fortnight, I'm sceptical as to what we could get from him that we haven't had in writing. It's just a couple of issues. I think that the petitioner has suggested that we also consider, as a committee, writing to Professor Alan Paterson of the University of Strathclyde, who's apparently done some independent academic research on that, so it might be useful as well as writing to the Lord President and asking him to consider it. It would be for the legacy paper as well whether or not it would appear in front of the committee, but I think that it might be useful to invite Professor Alan Paterson or suggest that we invite Professor Alan Paterson to give some independent academic scrutiny of what's been requested in the petition. There are a number of issues. I spent half an hour this morning trying to get the updated register for the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service judicial members' register of interest. I'm assured that it's on the site somewhere, but trying to find it this morning for half an hour was impossible to find. The last ones that I've got have actually come from last year, so they don't even have the up-to-date one with Lord Carlaway on it. I know from his register last year when he was on the board when he was Lord Justice Clarke. He didn't register anything in terms of his register of interest. It's just that if we've been told that there are safeguards in place, it would be useful to know how the general public get the information that they're looking for. If it's difficult to get the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service judicial members' registers, then it really raises other questions about where are we going with this and are they effectively trying to make it more difficult for people to find out the interests. The former judicial complaints reviewer, Moya Alley, has recently written to the Scotsman urging a register to be established, as she did when she gave evidence, as the current judicial complaints reviewer said that it would be helpful to have a register of judicial interests. It's something that I would like to think that the future Public Petitions Committee could take forward. For Lord Carlaway and others to come and give evidence and maybe answer some of the questions that may be further down the road. The suggestion is that we put it in our legacy paper, but if we write to the professor that he suggested, John, that response would come back and it would then be available to the future committee so that the consideration could take that into account. If they so wish to consider what will probably be on-going and have happened in the United States of America where judicial declarations perhaps go to an extreme that you would not wish to go to in terms of the replacement for Justice Scaliath. It's interesting to watch that and compare, isn't it? Right, okay, so it looks as though we've got some agreement around how to take that forward. Our next petition, PE1522, by Simon Brogan on improving bulk storage safety. There's so much more we can do with this, I don't think. We've got the responses back from all the interested parties and that looks as though it's a moving along. That's a situation that exists and will stay that way. Okay, we'll just close that petition then. PE1540 by Douglas Fyland on a permanent solution for the A83. I think we need to keep that open. There's no way we can close this. The solution is not being found and I noticed it. I went up to Inverary to look at this issue and did a site visit before I came on to the committee but I think there's been at least two landslides in the intervening period. It's clearly not resolved and it's having a huge impact on the local community up there so there's no way we can close that petition without that solution having been found yet. The convener was not just landslides but on one occasion we were there to close the road for a boulder that had to effectively demolish to make safe the side of the hill. I would like to draw attention to some of the submissions that we've had from members of the public on the issue. One in particular that I was concerned about is the issue has been raised where someone claims they were actually held at traffic lights underneath the hill where there was landslip state in place and it would be useful to find out from Transport Scotland what safety measures are being put in place because the petitioner, the member of public has indicated some alarming concern was raised by other road users that they were actually being held under an area that was known to be subject to landslips and if they are being held in traffic there then it would be interesting to see. The other comment I would make is that somebody's description of the current web of knitting stretching along the hillside, I just thought that the web of knitting, imagine the people out there knitting the webs to stop the boulders coming down but I think it is an issue that needs to go forward and form part of our legacy as well because there has to be a permanent solution to this issue. I will keep this one open, get it in the legacy paper and ask the next committee to keep an eye on that one. That brings us to our next petition, which is PE1570 by Alan Lee on parental rights to child contact and PE1589 by Stuart Currie on an independent review of child contact and financial provision post separation. I think that there is ongoing work in relation to this and I doubt very much if those issues will not be part of that consideration. The petitioners have flagged them up, the ministers know that those issues are there and I think that they are part of the discussion. Oh yeah, there is a draft letter on those petitions that members have in their paper work. If you are happy to note that that correspondence has gone as well, so it all contributes to the discussion and makes sure that the issues are raised with the review. We can close that one, I have those two, sorry on that basis. The next petition is PE1583 by Lisa Willis on primary school playground supervision. I think that there was a lot of sympathy for the issue that came up here. I think that we were all aware at the time that the burden that this would place on local authorities, what it would mean in terms of janitorial staff or teaching staff. I think that it is right that it has been flagged up and I think that local authorities are aware that they have to take account of these things but I just do not know that we can insist on the outcome that the petitioner was looking for although I hope that local authorities would see the importance of the issue that was raised and make sure that people's concerns over the safety of children and playgrounds prior to the school starting or as much as a part of the school day is the safety throughout the day. I think that the responses that we got are that local authorities are aware of that. It is just asking for the specifics of this petition to be delivered, I just think, beyond the possibilities that local authorities could deliver at the present time. The unions are not keen on it although they are certainly aware of the problem but they do not know what it would mean in terms of terms and conditions, renegotiations and what have you. I just think that it makes it far too complex an issue to resolve simplistically. I think that we will just have to draw a line under this one, is that it? I think that the petitioner has raised an interesting point in relation to the situation where children are dropped off earlier in school transport and where does the responsibility for the child start taking place? Is it when they board school bus and then get into the playground depending on when the bus arrives at the school? I agree that we should just go ahead and close this petition but I think that it is incumbent on us to say to the petitioner to continue negotiations with the local authority because clearly there is not a consistent policy throughout Scotland, some local authorities and some schools clearly have policies in place that take account of children arriving at the playground early and there is supervision in place but other schools do not seem to have that. Once again it seems to be down to the local headteachers discretion as to what they do so I would suggest that we ask the petitioner to keep discussing the issues with the headteacher and it may be that some voluntary action by parents in the school playground in conjunction with the headteacher might satisfy the petitioner. Our next petition is PE1585 by Isabel Lenox on behalf of Flag Up Scotland Jamaica on the Scottish Jamaica relations. This was a really interesting petition and it certainly enlightened me about the links between Scotland and Jamaica and it is good to know that people are aware of that and trying to promote it but I do understand where the Government is coming from on tight budgets and what would be required to extend the capacity of external relations. It is probably just too much to ask at the present time but I think that we could write to the Government and in accepting that position ask them to bear in mind when things turn round and start going the other direction that this should have a high priority in terms of external relations because I think that building on the links that the petition raised with us would be very beneficial. Members agree? Very limited costs just by putting people in touch with each other that don't require full-time secretariat in Kingston or whatever. I'm sure that the organisation that's brought this petitioner are working on those types of things but whether we could set up the same formal relationships as we do with Malawi and what have you I think that might be beyond the capacity of the Government at the time and I think we can accept that but that's not to say we wouldn't be desirable in the longer term when there is a bit more capacity there for building external relations. Members agree? Yes. For next petition PE 1586 by James A. Mackey on behalf of Innes Community Council on statutory control measures for invasive non-native species. Members have any views on what we can do with this? Convener, I'm reluctant to close this one because I think the response from SEPA for me raises a number of questions. One of the questions that I want to ask SEPA is where are we in terms of the research in the trials for potential biocontrol organisms for non-native invasive species because certainly I've heard talk about some biocontrol taking place but we don't know where that is at the present moment. It would be useful to find out where SEPA are in terms of that research. The other issue convener is in terms of the letter that we received from SEPA was the amount of money that's being made available to tackle invasive non-native species and the money on an annual basis seems to be going down but the problem seems to be increasing and it's whether or not there is enough resources there because clearly what we've heard from the minister and from SEPA and others is that there's a voluntary control mechanism that's being put in place which doesn't seem to be working and I know that the minister refers to two statutory control orders that were put in place. It would be useful to find out how successful those were because I just picked up an issue a couple of weeks ago in the area that I live where someone claimed that they had a licence to go on and clear Japanese knotweed and I would doubt very much if the individual or the organisation that he claimed to be working for did have a licence. There are concerns about who has the right to go on and carry out removal work for non-native species particularly Japanese knotweed, giant hogweed and Himalayan balsam so it would be just to try and get clarification because in the past as I think I've mentioned at this committee tried to find out over a weekend who would be responsible for contacting and reporting the removal of the legal removal of Japanese knotweed and only to find there is no helpline in a Saturday SNH, there's no helpline in SEPA at the weekend and the police claim it's not their responsibility to monitor it so for many people it would be useful to know who the best organisation to get in touch with and clearly SEPA seems to say it's SNH. SNH say well we're not really sure because the enforcement is sometimes SEPA's responsibility. It would just be useful to get clear guidance that the members of the public could follow and understand in relation to how they tackle either the legal removal or the growth of non-native species in their own communities. I'm sure that we've all got issues in our constituencies with, for example, giant hogweed Japanese knotweed, Himalayan balsam, so a particular problem in my constituency and Roddy Dendron. I would agree with the comments made by our colleague John Wilson, particularly with regard to the funding for the Water Framework Directive, which seems rather low given that this is a national problem and it needs everyone working together to address it. I'm just wondering if we could suggest in our legacy paper that perhaps the committee could invite SEPA to come along to give evidence on this because clearly in the past I've certainly called on SEPA to up their game on a number of issues and this may well be another one that needs to be addressed so perhaps it should be considered that SEPA should come and give evidence here with regard to this issue. That's a good suggestion. We could write to SEPA as John suggested and get that back in so that it becomes part of the consideration of the petition and put in the legacy paper that invitation. I think that's a reasonable course of action. Members appear to agree. The next petition is PE1587 by Arthur McFarland on the Scottish Civic Forum. I would appear no one agrees with it. He raises an appropriate point. The Government's not keen on it. There are other fora available and I don't think that there's any way we can do. I think it was of its time, wasn't it? If it was a need for it, I would come back again but I think it was of its time so there doesn't seem to be any agreement around the petition so I think all we can do is close it. Angus? I think it's worth noting that the Scottish Government isn't closing the door. That was the point that I was making. If there's a need for it in the future, it could happen again but it's of its time. It might not be the time for it on any requirement for it at the moment but it's certainly an option that remains available on the table should such a forum be needed. The next petition is PE1588 by Daisy Harris on scanning op-ets found on Scottish roads. Members have any views on this one? No real support for it and on that basis I don't see where we can go. It's not going to go anywhere is it? I get the impression that it's the type of financial decision that a local authority, if it was faced with having to make cuts at the moment, this would be the type of service that we'd be getting cut rather than introduced. As I said, I understand where the petitioner was coming from but I just don't think there's any real interest in taking the issue forward and there's no point in pretending otherwise, so will we close the petition on our basis? Angus? I would agree, convener. However, again, it's perhaps worth noting that routine scanning of dead pets found on roads is already best practice, so you know it's sort of already scattered. There is some work in the area actually but I think the mandatory scanning and what the petitioner was calling for just didn't have the support to take it further, so no much more we can do about that. Our next petition, PE1590, by Nick Powell, on behalf of the British acupuncture council on licences for acupuncturists. Again, I don't see where we can take it. I think it's again the financial burden on local authorities that becomes the biggest consideration in all of this. Probably not where the petitioner wanted to take it, but he can't ignore what the cost implications of it would be, even if there was a desire to to make a change. It just doesn't appear to have any support because of the burden that we place on local authorities, so we're not going to get any agreement on this one either, so we'll close it. The 13th petition this morning, our last one, is PE1591 by Katrina MacDonald on behalf of SOS NHS on major redesign of healthcare services in Skylacalsh and South West Ross. I have to say that, based on the amount of information that the campaigners brought to us, I don't think that the responses that we got in any way addressed the entirety of the concerns that were raised. I think that there's a bit of work that still has to be done around this petition. There's a lot of concern about a decision having been made when the consultation appears to have been so unsatisfactory. I'm not saying that we have to, as a committee this morning, agree what we have to do to raise this, but I really don't think that we can close it. I think that there's still life in this one. We could put it in the legacy paper to ask the next committee to continue looking into this, because lessons have to be learned, even if we can't get an overturning of the decision. I think that there has to be some understanding of why there were so many concerns about how the consultation arrived at the decision that it did and left so many people in the community affected so dissatisfied with it. I just don't think that it's possible to say, well, that's the end of that, we didn't get the questions answered. Those questions, a lot of them still remain unanswered, but I think that there's not much we can do with it in a fortnight, but that's not to say that the Petitions Committee in the next session couldn't look at this again and look to see if there's more work that could be done around it, even passing it to the health committee, if that's ultimately what they want to do, so that there could be some consideration of how this consultation—a lot of the controversies around decisions made by health boards aren't so much about the actual decision itself but about how the consultation arrives at that decision. We heard that with one of the other petitions that we have, the health boards in front of us, and they consulted and then just completely ignored 80 per cent of the public who had consulted and took the side of the minority. That kind of thing leaves people wondering what is the point of consulting in the first place, and I just think that there's a bigger picture here that's not really being addressed in the responses that we've got, but I don't know if members agree with that. Community, I agree that we should put this in our legacy paper, but as a piece of work prior to the next committee being established, I think that the petitioner has raised a number of questions in relation to the responses received, and I think that it might be useful to actually send on a copy of the response from the petitioner to the various organisations that she's cited and ask them for responses to the issues that the petitioner has raised in light of the responses that we've received from other organisations. Clearly, as you've indicated at the start of your comments on the petition, some of the issues that were originally raised by the petitioner were not addressed by the organisations that responded, so it might be worthwhile to give them another opportunity to respond, based on the petitioner's reply, but also to remind them what the original petitioner was asking for in relation to the issues that were raised. That would form the basis for future consideration by the next committee. In that case, we'll keep that one open on those terms, pursue it in the way that it's been suggested and get it into the legacy paper for future consideration. That concludes the public part of our meeting this morning, but members want to hold back just to get a wee bit more information about our event yesterday. I can brief them, but Femti needs to leave. We're free to do so now. I'll close the meeting at that point. Thanks very much.