Policy Makers, Advocacy Groups Discuss Future of European Food in Brussels

Summary

The European Board on Agriculture and Food (EBAF) held its first meet­ing in Brussels, chaired by Commissioner Hansen, focus­ing on pri­or­i­ties such as gen­er­a­tional renewal and reduc­ing depen­dency on exter­nal inputs. The meet­ing addressed the need for a shift towards agroe­col­ogy in the European Union’s agri­cul­ture pol­icy, with Slow Food advo­cat­ing for sus­tain­able prac­tices in olive oil pro­duc­tion and pro­mot­ing the devel­op­ment of the Slow Food Farms net­work.

The European Board on Agriculture and Food’s (EBAF) first meet­ing occurred ear­lier this month in Brussels, chaired by European Commissioner for Agriculture and Food Christophe Hansen.

“Commissioner Hansen high­lighted that the forth­com­ing ​‘Vision for Agriculture and Food’ doc­u­ment shall focus on pri­or­ity areas: ensure a strong gen­er­a­tional renewal, make the agri­cul­tural sec­tor attrac­tive again and reduce the depen­dency from exter­nal inputs, includ­ing the E.U.’s depen­dency on Russia for fer­til­iz­ers given the cur­rent geopo­lit­i­cal sit­u­a­tion,” Marta Messa, sec­re­tary gen­eral of Slow Food, which is one of the mem­bers of the EBAF, told Olive Oil Times.

EBAF, a con­sul­ta­tive body with 30 mem­bers from across the agri­food chain and civil soci­ety, was cre­ated in December 2024 as part of the Strategic Dialogue on the Future of E.U. Agriculture. The goal is to improve access to safe, afford­able, nutri­tious food for all and tackle mount­ing dis­con­tent among E.U. farm­ers.

The meet­ing comes against a back­drop of low adher­ence to the Mediterranean diet, which pro­po­nents argue is caused by pre­dom­i­nant poli­cies and unsus­tain­able global food pro­duc­tion sys­tems.

Its sup­port­ers see the Mediterranean diet as a log­i­cal end­point for many coun­tries under­tak­ing what is known as the Great Food Transformation, i.e., ​“the unprece­dented range of actions taken by all food sys­tem sec­tors across all lev­els that aim to nor­mal­ize healthy diets from sus­tain­able food sys­tems.”

In 2024, the inde­pen­dent Food System Economics Commission pub­lished a pol­icy report express­ing the urgency of the trans­for­ma­tion.

The report details fea­si­ble path­ways to tackle global cli­mate, nature and health emer­gen­cies through a health-enhanc­ing and envi­ron­men­tally sus­tain­able food sys­tem. It high­lights the enor­mous eco­nomic ben­e­fits this shift in pro­duc­tion and con­sump­tion pat­terns can offer.

Agrifood sys­tems and their redesign toward sus­tain­able, resilient, and inclu­sive food sys­tems are at the heart of the European Union’s Farm to Fork Strategy, a key ele­ment of the European Green Deal.

However, Messa said European poli­cies, such as the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which will expire at the end of 2027, must be revised to pro­mote a more sus­tain­able food sys­tem.

“Work is start­ing on the revi­sion of the CAP, and hope­fully, it will go in the direc­tion of sup­port­ing the agroe­co­log­i­cal tran­si­tion,” she said.

Currently, ​“eco-schemes are a way to pro­mote pos­i­tive prac­tices, of work­ing towards rec­og­niz­ing the need to pro­tect and fos­ter agro­bio­di­ver­sity, which is often over­looked in European poli­cies,” Messa added.

She said Hansen had been tasked with plan­ning a new CAP to account for the pos­si­bil­ity of Ukraine’s acces­sion to the E.U.

“In such a sce­nario, the cur­rent area-based pay­ments of the CAP would no longer be fea­si­ble,” she said. ​“But above all, the CAP needs to be revised to ensure the sus­tain­abil­ity of farm­ing in Europe over time.”

Slow Food is a global food move­ment involv­ing farm­ers, fish­ers, cooks, food arti­sans, edu­ca­tors, youth, cit­i­zens and all those who believe in good, clean and fair food for all.

“The key is to involve all food sys­tem stake­hold­ers in the tran­si­tion to agroe­col­ogy, apply­ing a holis­tic approach” and ​“the agroe­co­log­i­cal approach as the main ele­ment for the ​‘Vision for Agriculture and Food’ would have impor­tant con­se­quences at the pro­duc­tion, dis­tri­b­u­tion and con­sump­tion level,” Messa said.

The prin­ci­ples of agroe­col­ogy are being applied by many pro­duc­ers and pro­moted by many orga­ni­za­tions and schol­ars.

In 2024, a review of more than 13,000 pub­li­ca­tions has yielded valu­able insights into the sci­en­tific evi­dence asso­ci­ated with agroe­co­log­i­cal prac­tices and their socio-eco­nomic per­for­mance.

“Agroecology is what we need to achieve a shift in food sys­tems,” Messa said. Moreover, ​“a rebal­anc­ing of pro­duc­tion would affect the rebal­anc­ing of diets as well, an approach which would secure the sus­tain­abil­ity of food sys­tems now and in the future.”

As far as olive oil is con­cerned, ​“the focus should be put on agroe­co­log­i­cal olive oil pro­duc­tion in agroe­co­log­i­cal food sys­tems that are envi­ron­men­tally also sus­tain­able,” she added, also tak­ing ​“the influ­ence of the cli­mate cri­sis and its impact on the pro­duc­tion of olive oil and of many other crops” into account.

Indeed, ​“sci­en­tific evi­dence at the basis of the need to rebal­ance pro­duc­tion (between ani­mal and plant-based) and con­sump­tion was also dis­cussed dur­ing the strate­gic dia­logue,” Messa noted.

She high­lighted that agroe­co­log­i­cal prac­tices could be imple­mented at local and regional lev­els to safe­guard sus­tain­able olive oil pro­duc­tion and avoid or reduce the crop’s vul­ner­a­bil­ity to pests and dis­eases, such as Xylella fas­tidiosa.

So far, Slow Food’s olive oil farm projects have been cen­tered in three coun­tries: Italy, Spain and Turkey.

“We launched the Slow Food Farms ini­tia­tive, rooted in agroe­co­log­i­cal prin­ci­ples, to ele­vate and sup­port farm­ers who are engag­ing in the agroe­co­log­i­cal tran­si­tion so that they may have an oppor­tu­nity to pro­mote and sell their prod­ucts through the exist­ing Slow Food net­work,” Messa said, ​“Developing the Slow Food Farms net­work is our cur­rent pri­or­ity, to sup­port all those engaged in the agroe­co­log­i­cal tran­si­tion.”

Slow Food has already devel­oped suc­cess­ful Slow Coffee and Slow Wine coali­tions, col­lab­o­ra­tive net­works to encour­age sus­tain­able agroe­co­log­i­cal farm­ing prac­tices within the inter­na­tional cof­fee and wine chains.

Messa said devel­op­ing an olive oil coali­tion would be a ​“won­der­ful” addi­tion to the Slow Food cause.

“Establishing part­ner­ships with actors shar­ing a com­mon vision would, how­ever, be a pre­req­ui­site,” she said, under­lin­ing the value and via­bil­ity of cre­ative col­lec­tive agency.

Researchers argue that despite resis­tance to change, the agri­food sys­tem needs to be recon­fig­ured to tran­si­tion to a sus­tain­able and resilient post-growth sys­tem.

Finding com­mon ground among the dif­fer­ent actors when address­ing com­plex and fun­da­men­tal issues as part of the deci­sion-mak­ing process that will shape future E.U. agri­cul­tural pol­icy direc­tions will also mean keep­ing the pro­mo­tion of afford­able, healthy dietary pat­terns as an expres­sion of local cul­tural iden­tity in mind.

EBAF may offer a unique oppor­tu­nity to do just that.

• European Commission
• Nature Sustainability
• Global Food Security