Today, the Commission adopted a package of measures for a sustainable use of key natural resources, which will also strengthen the resilience of EU food systems and farming.

A soil monitoring law will put the EU on a pathway to healthy soils by 2050, by gathering data on the health of soils and making it available to farmers and other soil managers. The law also makes sustainable soil management the norm and addresses situations of unacceptable health and environment risks due to soil contamination. Today's proposals will also boost innovation and sustainability, by enabling the safe use of technical progress in new genomic techniques, to enable developing climate-resilient crops and reducing the use of chemical pesticides, and by ensuring more sustainable, high-quality and diverse seeds and reproductive material for plants and forests. Finally, new measures also propose to reduce food and textile waste, which will contribute to a more efficient use of natural resources and a further reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from these sectors.

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Press remarks by Executive Vice-President Timmermans and Commissioner Sinkevičius on proposals for a more sustainable use of plant and soil natural resources