Agricultural Law and Food Law

The study, after having started from the observation that the majority of agricultural products intended for human consumption, and therefore the right of the manifold interrelations between agriculture and the food law, shows how the Communitarian law, today European Union law, many agricultural products, such as recipients of the measures implementing the common agricultural policy, included in Annex I to the TFEU are also food, whether processed or not. In this way the many foods included in the Annex to this Treaty shall apply to special Community rules laid down for the agricultural sector, as provided by the present Articles. 38 to 44 TFEU. In light of this situation for a long time the regulation of food has occurred as a corollary of the agricultural discipline, because in a constant direction of the Court of Justice, the objectives of its common agricultural policy (CAP) took precedence over any other purposes, such as food safety, they were pursued by the Community legislation. The situation began to change given the adoption of Reg. EC No 178/2002 and the introduction into the Community of the definition of food business, which also includes cross-sectional shape of the farms as subjects of a necessary phase - the production of raw materials - the food chain, and the emergence of principles of the food industry. As a result farmers have in some ways "just" the expansive force of the principles of Reg. 178/02, knowing new constraints and obligations, such as those arising not only from the same reg. 178 but also the regulations adopted on the basis of that, such as Regulations on the so called “hygiene package”. Even after receipt of the reg. 178/02, however, is still possible to identify a range of agricultural law from the food law while being aware that the boundaries between the two subject areas are much less definitive than a past not too far away.