Sustainable Food Systems in the EU Strategy – REPORTEDITED BY BENEDETTA ANNICCHIARICO
Sustainable Food Systems in the EU Strategy – Assessing Farm to Fork & Fit for 55
REPORT
edited by Benedetta Annicchiarico, Junior Fellow at Competere
Executive Summary
The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for a concerted global effort toward the achievement of a sustainable world food system that takes into consideration regional divides in terms of income, natural resources, farming and industrial capacities, and food culture.
Sustainable Nutrition policies aiming to provide sustainably grown, affordable, and culturally sensitive foods to peoples all over the world, can offer the best response to the challenge presented. All while reducing the environmental externalities of food production and preserving biodiversity from environmentally aggressive agricultural practices.
At the European level, the importance of a sustainable food system has been recognized and enshrined in the 2020 Farm to Fork Strategy (F2F), as part of the Green Deal presented by the European Commission in late 2019. In July 2021, the legislative package Fit for 55 was proposed by the Commission to ramp up the mitigation efforts needed to reach the overarching goal of 55% reduction of GHG emissions by 2030. Although Fit for 55 does not address sustainable nutrition directly, some elements of emission reductions address (or fail to address) agricultural production.
While important steps in the direction of an ever-greener Union and of the creation of a sustainable food system in Europe and beyond, F2F and Fit for 55 present weaknesses that risk to undermine a truly sustainable food system’s fairness, effectiveness and accessibility. This report offers an overview of the two policy instruments and an analysis of their shortcomings as well as potential solutions.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Benedetta Annicchiarico is a Master student in Environmental Policy at the Paris School of International Affairs, where she is also minoring in migratory policy. In 2019 she graduated with a Bachelor degree from the University of Glasgow, Scotland, with a thesis on relations between Turkey and the European Union. Other than working with Competere, she is currently a member of the youth think tank Tortuga.
