My thanks for the invitation to speak at the 2021 EU Agricultural Outlook Conference.
Healthy and diverse diets are so fundamental to healthy and happy people. If ever we were to get something right, it would surely be providing such diets. Well, we aren’t getting it right. People are increasingly consuming unhealthy processed foods and narrowing their diets. Meanwhile, the way we produce and consume food is driving the triple planetary crisis of climate change, nature and biodiversity loss and pollution and waste.
Humanity has altered 75 per cent of the world’s terrestrial habitats and two thirds of its oceans to provide food, feed and fibre. These changes to the environment are already causing risks to food producers, within the EU and elsewhere. Only a complete transformation in food systems will allow us to provide food in equitable ways that don’t jeopardize life on this planet.
Before we get to how to do that, and how the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy, or CAP, fits in, let’s review just some of the ways our food systems drive the triple planetary crisis.
At a time when we are working towards a new global biodiversity framework, agriculture is a major driver of nature loss.
Agricultural expansion accounts for 70 per cent of the projected loss of terrestrial biodiversity. This loss of nature increases the risk of the emergence of zoonotic diseases, such as COVID-19. Biodiversity loss applies within agriculture and fisheries is also a major issue. Many domesticated plant and animal species becoming less widely consumed. This loss of diversity makes food systems less resilient to threats, including pests, pathogens, and climate change, thereby threatening global food security.
At a time when we need to work a lot harder to hold global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees C this century, our food systems are driving climate change.
Meat production has gone up 260 per cent in last 50 years. Now livestock contributes 14.5 per cent of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Meanwhile, food loss and waste generates 8 per cent of emissions.
At a time when we are looking to sustainably manage chemicals and waste, pollution from fertilizers, chemicals and pesticides is increasing.
This pollution is degrading soils, destroying ecosystems and creating dead zones in the seas and oceans. Meanwhile, anti-microbials in the environment and food value chains are a growing cause of human and animal death.
Friends, we have a lot of work to do. But a transformation of our food systems in line with the EU’s Green Deal can tackle the planetary crisis, and improve human and environmental health.
We need nature-positive food systems – before and after the farm gate. Happily, the new CAP acknowledges this. It places a focus on climate change, care for the environment, and the preservation of landscapes and biodiversity. This, alongside the need for fair incomes, vibrant rural areas and better-quality food.
So, let’s now quickly look at three ways to make this happen.
One, we take concrete action on sustainable and more diverse diets, and food waste and loss.
Such action is critical to breaking the system lock-ins that drive the intensification of agriculture and the conversion of natural ecosystems to crop production and pasture. Plant-based diets in particular improve human health and slow climate change. Food Systems Summit national dialogues can drive help to drive this process in an inclusive way.
Two, we set aside, protect and restore more land for nature.
The greatest gains for biodiversity will occur when we preserve or restore whole ecosystems. Restoring 15 per cent of converted lands in the right places could prevent 60 per cent of projected species extinctions. Such action is a major priority in the upcoming global biodiversity framework and the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.
Three, we farm in a more nature-friendly, biodiversity-supporting way.
This means limiting the use of harmful and polluting inputs. Replacing monoculture with polyculture farming practices. Backing deforestation-free, nature-positive supply chains. Working together at the national level across ministries. Accounting for nature’s values and costs.
Friends, it is up to member states to be bold, deliver on the transformation and end the triple planetary crisis.
With CAP 23-27, the EU has the tools to do this.
Some 87 per cent of support to agricultural producers, approximately USD 540 billion per year, include measures that are inefficient, inequitable, distort food prices, hurt people’s health and degrade the environment.
You can define the weight of how you allocate direct support to farmers. Some 40 per cent of the CAP budget is earmarked for direct payments. A quarter of this must go to eco-schemes.
You can repurpose subsidies and redirect finance that degrade nature to incentivize agricultural practices that use a more nature-supportive approach. Such as zero tillage, more diverse crop rotation and more mixed farming systems.
Evidence from the Food and Land Use Coalition shows that such practices can produce 15 times greater return on investment and unlock new business opportunities worth USD 4.5 trillion globally by 2030.
Friends,
There are only eight harvests left until 2030. The clock is ticking. But EU member states can become global leaders in sustainable agriculture via their national strategies. They can become global leaders by embedding action on agriculture into every process, from the Paris Agreement to the global biodiversity framework to the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.
I urge you to use the CAP wisely to provide food that is priced fairly and contributes to sustainable development. To provide food that is good for the planet, good for consumers and good for farmers. And to back thriving rural economies, which are critical to social cohesion and sustainable urban living.
Thank you.
