Agricultural policy in much of the world has been overly dominated by a focus on increasing yields and promoting industrialized monocultures and their concomitant technologies. It is time to also prioritize food policy so that all parts of the food system can be part of the transformative change needed for sustainability. Broader issues such as climate change, biodiversity loss, contrasting epidemics of malnutrition and obesity, worker exploitation, loss of family farms, lack of youth willing to carry on the generational knowledge of agriculture, and many others, are food system issues that in many ways are consequence of the productivist paradigm dominating agriculture today. We need food policy as much (if not more) than agricultural policy.
To address this need, in February, 2019, the International Panel of Experts in Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food) unveiled their report on a Common Food Policy for Europe – a blueprint for reform shaped by 400 food system actors. Following a three-year process of participatory agenda setting, collaboration, and research, the report was launched in early May 2019 at the European Parliament and to the European Economic and Social Committee.
Olivier De Schutter, IPES-Food co-chair and lead author, prefaced the unveiling by saying: “A Common Food Policy can spark a wholesale transition to sustainable food systems in a way that the CAP, as a Common Agricultural Policy, cannot. Currently, we have anti-obesity strategies, alongside agri-trade policies that make junk food cheap and abundant. We offer premiums to young farmers, alongside a subsidy model that drives up land prices and undermines access to land. And we have strict environmental standards, while the advisory services farmers would need to meet them are being defunded. A Common Food Policy can put an end to these costly contradictions by tackling the root of the problem: the way we make policies and set priorities in food systems.”
The report puts forward 80 concrete reform proposals, carefully sequenced over the short-, medium- and long-term. The reform agenda is ambitious, but also realistic, because the proposals are designed to reinforce one another. The most ambitious reforms will become viable on the basis of reclaiming policy-making from powerful lobbies, bringing new actors around the table, and allowing new priorities and new coalitions of interest to emerge. The Common Food Policy vision draws on the collective intelligence of more than 400 farmers, food entrepreneurs, civil society activists, scientists and policymakers consulted through 5 policy labs in Brussels, 4 local labs around Europe, and the May 2018 EU Food and Farming Forum (EU3F). It includes reform ideas endorsed by the European Parliament, the European Economic and Social Committee, the Committee of the Regions, and broad civil society coalitions.
The report calls on the EU institutions and Member States to raise their ambitions in current CAP reforms, to urgently align the various policies affecting food systems, and ultimately to complete and put in place a comprehensive Common Food Policy for the EU. Governance reforms are the first building block of a Common Food Policy. The report also puts forward proposals for reforming and realigning policies under five key objectives:
Ensuring access to land, water, and healthy soils
Rebuilding climate-resilient, healthy agroecosystems
Promoting sufficient, healthy, and sustainable diets for all
Building fairer, shorter, and cleaner supply chains
Putting trade in the service of sustainable development
The proposals include the following:
Create a European Commission Vice-President for Sustainable Food Systems and a Food Intergroup in the European Parliament to oversee & harmonize sectoral policies (CAP, trade, environment, etc.).
Require Member States to develop Healthy Diet Plans (covering public procurement, urban planning, fiscal and social policies, marketing & nutrition education) as a condition for unlocking CAP payments, & introduce comprehensive EU-wide restrictions on junk food marketing.
Introduce an EU-wide ‘agroecology premium’ as a new rationale for distributing CAP payments, rebuild independent farm advisory services, and create an EU Land Observatory to promote a widespread shift to sustainable farming and land use.
Make food importers accountable for ensuring their supply chains are free from deforestation, land-grabs and rights violations (‘due diligence’), remove investor protections (‘ISDS’) in trade agreements, and provide accessible complaints mechanisms for farmers and civil society.
Increase support for initiatives linking farmers and consumers (‘short supply chains’), relocalized processing and value-adding activities, local food policy councils, and urban food policies.
Create an EU Food Policy Council to bring the concerns of local food system actors to the EU level and ensure that EU policies are systematically designed to support the emergence of local food initiatives.
To read the full report and download copies, visit http://www.ipes-food.org/pages/CommonFoodPolicy
When implemented, this report would go a long way towards bringing culture back into agri-culture.