Free food for Europe’s poor

The scheme to distribute free food to the most deprived persons in the Community was launched as an emergency measure in the exceptionally cold winter of 1986/87, when surplus stocks of agricultural produce were given to Member State charities for distribution to people in need. The measure was subsequently formalised and based on intervention stocks. More recently, as agricultural surpluses have fallen, the programme has been supported by a direct financial contribution.

As the ongoing reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) increasingly ensures that intervention stocks are a thing of the past, the scheme will undergo a review in 2008 to determine its future. The views of concerned charities, government services and NGOs, as well as the general public, will be sought in the course of the assessment process.