As the tractors roll back into the streets of Brussels and London, it feels an opportune moment to reflect on the state of food, farming and the environment across Europe, and to contemplate — at a time of division and anger — whether there might still be scope through deep listening and meaningful negotiation to strike a ‘grand bargain’ across Europe in which farmers and the environment both truly flourish. Op-ed by Edward Davey.
A trip down memory lane
Four years is a long time in politics and in the tide of human affairs. It is also a long time in the ebb and flow of European food and land use policy.
A little over four years ago, shortly before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and mid-way through Ursula von der Leyen’s first term as European Commission President, her then Vice President Frans Timmermans gave what many felt to be a far-sighted speech at the launch of the Commission’s Farm to Fork policy.
The policy had been two years in the making, and was an important part of the wider European Green Deal. Many actors across the European food and land use system had contributed to its preparation (although the process had also generated some antibodies and resistance throughout that period). Timmermans’ speech at the time was full of hope and promise, and communicated with his characteristic energy and aplomb.
The central tenets of the policy were a focus on healthy food, nutritious diets, more sustainable farming, and a fairer food system generating better outcomes for farmers and citizens alike. Some felt it contained more ‘sticks’ than ‘carrots’, in its predisposition towards a regulatory approach, while others felt it didn’t go far enough. But its diagnosis of the issues was certainly strong; and the spirit intended to be positive, inclusive and conciliatory.
‘Farm to Fork’ came shortly after the Green Deal, with its commitment to make Europe climate-neutral by 2050, and mid-way through the life of that parliamentary cycle. And so, in principle, the Commission at the time had a few years before it to drive implementation. In fact, however, ‘events’ quickly took over. Most tragically of all, Russia invaded Ukraine, in February 2022, with this major development on the continent quickly leading to a new set of concerns and discourse around food security and the need to sustain and even increase food production in Europe at a time of such volatility and uncertainty.
Where previously a multilateralist Brussels (through its Directorate-General for Agriculture, DG AGRI) had focused on a food security orthodoxy based on mutually-interdependent food systems joined by free trade and respect for trade rules, now a ‘Fortress Europe’ mentality based on the chimera of self-sufficiency had become the order of the day.
This commitment to increased continent-wide food production, with fewer environmental safeguards, was combined with a sense that the rest of the world was moving in this same direction, and that at a time of war and a retreat from global norms Europe too had to rethink its overall economic model, including agriculture.
This sense was heightened further by European farmers’ spiralling concerns about increased competition and the risk of being cut in trade agreements as a result of a perceived race to the bottom on environmental and animal welfare standards from other competing markets.
A spike in the cost of fertilisers and an increase in the price of food in 2023 further exacerbated tensions, with Belgian farmers early that year protesting plans to limit nitrogen emissions; French and German farmers later in the year protesting diesel tax changes; and then widespread farmer protests related to nitrogen and nature protection regulations, and livestock, including in the Netherlands and Flanders, from 2023 – 2024 (with citizen protests at the same time against the loosening of pesticide regulations in France).
The combination of all these factors — the sheer visceral impact of Russia’s war on Ukraine; Ukraine’s significance as a global agricultural producer; rising energy prices, inflation and cost of living crises exacerbated by the war; and the farmer protests — have loomed heavily over the continent during the years following ‘Farm to Fork’.
And now even in the European Commission canteen, which had at some point begun to make modest concessions in the direction of a more flexitarian, one might say Mediterranean diet, meat returned squarely to the menu, with (anecdotally) meat-heavy dishes such as spaghetti carbonara more noticeably in the ascendant.
Weaponising and Wedge-Driving
In a nutshell, it has been a difficult few years for those making the case that a healthier, more competitive and more resilient Europe might ultimately be secured by the kinds of policies put forward in Farm to Fork and its other Green Deal counterparts.
Trust is at a low ebb between different groups, including, critically, between many farming and environmental groups; and parts of the populist right have moved quickly to ‘weaponise’ food and farming as a ‘wedge issue’, further driving division. Prospects for ambitious CAP reform would appear to be low; and made lower still by the farmers on the streets of Brussels this week.
In response to some of these dynamics, the new Commission under von der Leyen undertook a ‘Strategic Dialogue on Food’, ably led by the German philologist Professor Peter Strohschneider, which brought together many of the key players over seven months to broker areas of consensus and agreement; a European equivalent, one might say, of the National Food Strategy that Henry Dimbleby had pursued in England a few years prior.
But here too consensus appeared to unravel quickly after the report’s inception, with many bruised by the process. And in its absence, powerful agricultural interests now appear to hold sway in Brussels, working to undermine regulations in a series of important areas, with pesticides next on the menu.
Glimmers of hope
But all is of course not lost; and even within crisis, there is opportunity. Many European citizens across the continent continue to hope for a better food system which works for farmers and consumers alike; a system that is both fairer, more diverse, and better for the environment, animal welfare, and human health.
Many farmers are exploring the implementation of more sustainable and regenerative farming methods, precisely as a response to spiralling input prices and a volatile and changing climate in which fresh water is scarce and the seasons are changing. In interesting ways, in diverse landscapes, many farmers are by default reverting to a less intensive, more ecological system — not least as a safety valve when faced with floods and droughts, as seen for example across Italy and Greece over recent years.
Some new policy avenues pursued by the Commission could prove fruitful in providing space for innovation and new ways of thinking. DG Clima has worked hard to build a new framework and set of incentives to support more sustainable farming, leading to greater soil health.
And while the next round of the European Emissions Trading Scheme is not currently set to include farming, there is clearly an evolving interest in the continent around agri-food (and perhaps other) companies meeting their Scope 3 science-based targets in part through the purchase of credits from farmers that are making progress in reducing emissions. The forthcoming Cypriot and Irish presidencies of the EU appear to be sympathetic to this line of argument; and there are lessons to be learned from how Denmark has made domestic progress on this issue (lessons both good and bad; these initiatives should not add to the EU’s already large external agricultural footprint).
The European Investment Bank is now firmly committed to providing effective packages of finance to nations and their financial intermediaries as they seek to support their farming sectors to pivot to more sustainable and regenerative approaches. If the EIB can show how a successful package of loans can be provided to European livestock and dairy farmers to modernise their operations, as they seem keen to do, this could pose a major step forward.
A continuing focus across the continent on economic competitiveness may yet drive the kinds of innovation in agricultural approaches to livestock, including through genetics and vaccination, that could make a major dent in emissions in the years ahead. Perhaps these kinds of approaches will be felt to be more ‘socially acceptable’ and attractive to farmers than the ‘sticks’ which Farm to Fork put forward four years ago; and which many in the environmental community tend to favour.
Betting on bioenergy
Amid new policy innovations and frameworks, there are however significant risks too. A new focus on bioeconomy and biotech, while providing some avenues for innovation, also entails a major risk due to the excessive reliance the new Bioeconomy strategy places on the use of biofuels and Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS), which many — including the World Resources Institute (WRI) — feel would be a step in the wrong direction.
This strategy presupposes the existence of much greater waste streams than would appear to be the case. It could also lead to significantly greater overall use of land and biomass, at a time when the EU’s forest carbon sink has already shrunk by a third over the past decade, and when there are already increasing pressures on the use of that land (such as in Germany, where the government has recently approved a substantial financial incentive package to support the production and consumption of bioenergy).
Much better, in our view, and the views of many, to use the EU’s finite land, either for sustainable agriculture to meet the continent’s food security needs, or for the protection and restoration of nature, as set out in the Nature Restoration Law or other environmental commitments.
Scope for a grand bargain
It would be easy to be despairing at this point; but despair is not an option here. There must, surely, amid the collective discontent, be the makings of a quintessentially European ‘grand bargain’ even at this time of turmoil.
An opportunity for European farmers and the rural communities they inhabit to flourish and prosper; an opportunity for Europe’s beleaguered but still precious and varied natural environment to thrive; and an opportunity for Europe’s citizens to eat healthy, nutritious, varied food, in keeping with the best of Europe’s varied and rich culinary traditions.
In other words, there is more that unites us, than divides us; and still an opportunity for Ursula von der Leyen and her Commission to drive a better set of outcomes and set of agreements spanning food, farming and the natural environment.
Perhaps, as the tractors return to the streets, and as Christmas approaches, we might all be able to give these issues some calm thought; listen deeply to others; and return to the negotiating table (perhaps over food itself) early in the new year to forge a new way forward.
Edward Davey is Head of the World Resources Institute’s UK office, and serves as a Senior Advisor to the Food and Land Use Coalition (FOLU). He writes this in his personal capacity.
This article is produced in cooperation with the
Heinrich Böll Stiftung European Union.
More
Re-CAP: Breaking down the breakdown of the EU’s green farming measures
A Not So Common Agricultural Policy and A Mega MF(F)ing Fund – What’s Cooking in the New CAP?
Rise for Food Justice – Join the European Days of Action 2025!
European Rural Parliament 2025 — Rural Community Solutions to Global Challenges
Op-Ed | From Declaration to Action – Rethinking Rural Power in EU Policymaking
Planting Seeds of Quiet Agroecological Resistance in South Africa’s Fields
