A Common Food Policy for the EU is needed to combat climate change, halt biodiversity loss, curb obesity, and make farming viable for future generations, according to a report published on Thursday, 7 February, by the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food).
According to Olivier De Schutter, IPES-Food co-chair and lead author of the report, a common food policy can “spark a wholesale transition to sustainable food systems” where the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) “cannot”.
He explains that we are implementing ambitious anti-obesity programmes “alongside agri-trade policies that make junk food cheap and abundant”. He criticizes the current CAP, which is based on “a subsidy model that drives up land prices and undermines access to land”.
The report presents 80 proposals for “ambitious but realistic reform”, including: - the appointment of a European Commission Vice-President for Sustainable Food Systems and the creation of a Food Intergroup in the European Parliament to oversee and harmonize sector policies (CAP, trade, environment, etc.); - Member States’ Healthy Diet Plans (CAP payments would be conditional on the adoption of such plans); - an EU-wide ‘agroecology premium’, as a new rationale for distributing CAP payments; - an EU Land Observatory; - measures to combat land grabbing, human rights violations, and deforestation; - removal of investor protections in trade agreements; - development of ‘short supply chains’.
This three-year effort towards a Common Food Policy “draws on the collective intelligence” that has brought together more than 400 farmers, food entrepreneurs, civil society activists, scientists, and policymakers.
The Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance in the European Parliament welcomed the publication of this report by also calling for “the CAP to be replaced with a Common Food Policy, protecting ecosystems and health”. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)