The Minister of Consumption, Alberto Garzón, has pointed out this Wednesday during his appearance in the Health and Consumption Commission of the Congress of Deputies that products such as watermelon, whose price increase is generating concern among consumers, is “affected by alterations and climatic phenomena like two waves of extreme heat in spring affecting the orchards of Almería and Murcia together with an increase in demand at a national and international level». In this sense, he explained that there is “a clear dislocation in international trade that is affecting the markets for raw materials, energy, minerals and food”. In his opinion, inflation “is not a problem of demand, nor of wages, so the measures aimed at wage containment come from fossilized economics manuals.”
In the chapter on announcements, Garzón has reported the creation of a sanctioning sub-directorate general for massive fraud, as well as the approval of a royal decree to make retail hygiene more flexible without reducing security at the end of the year and a regulation on animal welfare in slaughterhouses through the installation of video surveillance. He has also made reference to the imminent start of the processing of the future Customer Service Law, the first draft of which, he has criticized, dates from 2011. Regarding the regulations related to gambling, he added that by the end of this year they will regulate everything related to loot boxes or ‘loot boxes’ in video games, the draft of which will be released for consultation in the coming weeks. “We will be the first country with a specific regulation,” he pointed out.
Garzón has also reaffirmed his previous statements on consumption and all the generated debate of “political controversy that is not scientific.” In his opinion, it is necessary to change consumption habits and has urged to focus attention on the food field “which accounts for more than 50% of the ecological impact.” In this context, he has once again valued the recommendation to reduce meat consumption “due to ecological health advice as well.”
From there, the minister has recognized that “the model of production and consumption is very diverse, with large and small farms” that he has simplified into “a family model – extensive livestock, very popular in Castilla y León, Asturias… with environmentally sustainable inputs” and another “macro-intensive model, of macro-farms, an unsustainable model whose necessary inputs such as feed, water consumption and others add a series of ecological impacts”. In this sense, he has been in favor of the first model – “we have not been neutral”, he has recognized – and defended the existence of what he has called the “traditional model of extensive and semi-extensive livestock versus macro-farms”.
In this line, Garzón has reaffirmed himself in his statements and in the defense of a model that he has considered sustainable. For this reason, he has criticized the “impact” of certain production models in the agri-food field and mentioned the loss of flora in the Mar Menor. “Large farms not only pollute but also contribute to the emission of greenhouse gases and create feedback of zoonotic diseases.”
For the minister, “the lobby of the macro-farms tortured the statements against those who had put their finger on the yaga, they are investment funds, with different business models that he explains contextualizes what happened at that time.”
