There’s no food security without local production

After the Strategic Dialogue on the future of EU agriculture in 2024, the first exercise of this kind, the European Commission published on the 19^th of February its vision for it and how EU agricultural policies will be designed to deliver.  

What’s our analysis? Firstly, the general objective remains to provide food for all. Food security is at the top of the agenda, just like energy security, and raw material security. Access to basic resources is now THE priority for all EU policies. Interestingly the week after, the French organisation Terre de Liens, whose mission is to ensure access to land for farmers, released a report showing how the current policies are causing considerable damage to our “sovereignty” and potential food production. In France, 43% of agricultural land is devoted to food production for export.

The proposed vision for EU food and agricultural policies does not suggest another model. The Farm to Fork vision has completely disappeared. But the same is happening with the other resources. The European Commission proposed an Affordable Energy Plan on the same day as its Clean Industrial Deal. This plan does not mention reducing our demand or local production of renewable energy. Instead, it speaks about producing more “European” energy mainly through nuclear and big offshore windfarms.

I understand that despite several massive shocks on the “free trade” dogma, it is not easy to completely change the mindset. But the Strategic Dialogues on Agriculture proved that, actually, the sector is much more ready than the decision-makers are to move towards a real shift that would regenerate our soil, produce what we need, and stop wasting our land and food!

“Building food security and resilience through territorial markets” was the call of the international expert committee on food. Food security and food sovereignty depend on localising our production! Unfortunately, this is not what the EU vision for food and agriculture is proposing.