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The importance of Food Sovereignty for the Farm to Fork strategy and the New Green Deal. Insights and limits of the SAM and SAPEA reports 1

  • May 2020
DOI:10.13140/RG.2.2.18384.53761
  • Report number: https://edepot.wur.nl/524951
  • Affiliation: Wageningen University & Research
Authors:
Jessica Duncan at Wageningen University & Research
Jessica Duncan
Priscilla Claeys at Coventry University
Priscilla Claeys
Marta G. Rivera-Ferre at Spanish National Research Council
Marta G. Rivera-Ferre
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Abstract

Rationale: This brief reflects on the key scientific contributions of the recent publication of the report 'Towards a Sustainable Food System' by the Chief Scientific Advisors (Scientific Advice Mechanism-SAM) 1 and the SAPEA (Science Advice for Policy by European Academies) Evidence Review Report on 'Sustainable Food Systems for the EU' 2 that informed it. This is done with a view towards advancing food sovereignty and agroecology in the Farm to Fork Strategy. Context: Vulnerable food systems Covid-19 has exposed even more limits and dysfunctions in our globalized food systems: from our reliance on underpaid farm and food sector workers operating in poor working conditions (most often women and migrants), the risks associated with intensive animal farming, including zoonoses, to barriers facing small-scale producers when trying to access local markets, to gender inequalities and the additional risks faced by people with pre-existing diet-related health conditions. Covid-19 is also set to aggravate other shocks (e.g. crop failures or abrupt changes in food prices due to climate change and other extreme events), and threats (e.g. biocultural erosion, degrading soil fertility, ageing farm population, land concentration, lack of farm renewal). These shocks and threats reveal the fragility of the European food systems, which the SAPEA report makes clear is even more vulnerable due to its interdependent nature and the fact that 1
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AL.pdf
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AL.pdf
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All content in this area was uploaded by Jessica Duncan on Jun 29, 2020
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... Agroecology is both a science and a social movement where indigenous data as well as circular, social, and solidarity economies are emphasized (Duncan et al., 2020). Allowing natural pests to grow and building healthy soils can result in healthy plants that withstand disease and pathogens (Brzozowski and Mazourek, 2018). ...
... According to a French study, agroecology might supply Europe with a nutritious diet by 2050 by reducing GHGs and allowing the recovery of soils and biodiversity (Poux and Aubert, 2018). Agroecological food systems are essential for maintaining natural biodiversity, averting fires, and preserving cultural history, resulting in a well-preserved and vibrant countryside in rural areas (Duncan et al., 2020). ...
... The Green Deal's key underlying issue will be maintaining priority in EU and national policy planning during the long implementation period. According to Article 9 of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture and Article 19 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants, the EU and its Member States must ensure that seed policies, plant variety protection, and other intellectual property laws are in place (Duncan et al., 2020). Changing frames or challenging the underlying narratives and assumptions that drive policies can pave the way for major policy changes. ...
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... L'obiettivo di questa strategia è infatti quello di costruire un sistema alimentare equo, sano e rispettoso dell'ambiente, garantendo una produzione alimentare sostenibile, assicurando la sicurezza alimentare, promuovendo un consumo alimentare sostenibile, riducendo la perdita di cibo e combattendo le frodi alimentari (EC., 2020). Secondo Duncan et al. (2020) l'agroecologia dovrebbe essere centrale nella nuova strategia Farm to Fork. L'agroecologia è definita come "l'applicazione delle scienze ecologiche allo studio, alla progettazione e alla gestione di agroecosistemi sostenibili" (Altieri, 1995). ...
... L'agroecologia è definita come "l'applicazione delle scienze ecologiche allo studio, alla progettazione e alla gestione di agroecosistemi sostenibili" (Altieri, 1995). Un vantaggio dell'agroecologia è che può essere facilmente adattata alle condizioni locali (Duncan et al., 2020). Inoltre l'agroecologia riduce la dipendenza dagli input esterni e può tradursi in prezzi equi per i produttori e cibo sano per i consumatori (Duncan et al., 2020). ...
... Un vantaggio dell'agroecologia è che può essere facilmente adattata alle condizioni locali (Duncan et al., 2020). Inoltre l'agroecologia riduce la dipendenza dagli input esterni e può tradursi in prezzi equi per i produttori e cibo sano per i consumatori (Duncan et al., 2020). Ma forse l'elemento più importante, guardando alle sfide attuali che dobbiamo affrontare, è l'impatto che l'agroecologia ha sui cambiamenti climatici, stimolando una forma più sostenibile e più resiliente di agricoltura (Altieri et al., 2015 2019), grazie al miglioramento della qualità del suolo. ...
Libro "Per fare un Orto" dal progetto Ortobiattivo: agroecologia per la produzione sostenibile di ortaggi nutraceutici
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  • Apr 2022
Capitoli del dr. Domenico Prisa del Libro "Per fare un Orto" * Possibile Utilizzo di Biostimolnati a base di humus di lombrico liquido per il miglioramento della qualità e della protezione di piante di basilico * Uso di Effective Microorganisms EM per migliorare la qualita e la fioritura di bulbose ornamentali
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... Although scholars from European universities and research institutes have assessed the F2F Strategy's potential for sustainability and social inclusivity (Alberdi et al. 2020), and for advancing food sovereignty and agroecology (Duncan et al. 2020), the existing literature was brief and a thorough analysis of the F2F Strategy for addressing power imbalances and strengthening the position of farmers was lacking (EC 2022e). Therefore, the objective of this article is to analyse the dominant discourse in the F2F Strategy and related EU food policy documents, specifically focusing on how power imbalances affecting small and medium-sized farmers in the food chain are recognized and addressed through policy interventions for a just transition towards a sustainable EU food system. ...
Rebalance power and strengthen farmers’ position in the EU food system? A CDA of the Farm to Fork Strategy
Article
Full-text available
The Farm to Fork (F2F) Strategy at the heart of the European Union’s Green Deal set out to create a “just transition” towards a sustainable food system, with benefits for all actors. We conducted a critical discourse analysis (CDA) to explore discourses around power in the food system and farmers’ position in the communication and implementation of the Farm to Fork Strategy. Discourse analysis encapsulates various scientific methodologies for deciphering the meaning behind the creation and communication of different forms of language and identify power dynamics, amongst other aspects. We identified two prior discourses in one of the objectives of the European Union’s new Common Agricultural Policy (2023-27). Our analysis found that the discourses, namely “rebalance power in food system” and “strengthening farmers’ position in value chains,” are marginalized in favour of an innovation-investment discourse, indicative of greater financialization and technologization based on techno-finances fixes in transforming the European Union agri-food system. We argue that entities representing agri-business interests have been influential in the policymaking process and voices representing smallholder and medium-sized farmers’ transformational discourses have been excluded.
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... Together with the Biodiversity Strategy it has also been listed among "some of the world's most ambitious efforts to catalyse a food system transition" (Candel, 2022, p.296), with ambitious targets (Mowlds, 2020, p. 20). However, it was also criticised for claiming to intervene in the transition to sustainable food systems without providing a clear definition of how sustainability in food systems is envisioned (Schebesta and Candel, 2020, p. 586;Duncan et al, 2020, p. 3). Definitions, principles and requirements about the sustainability framework, in fact, will not be published until the end of 2023 (F2F, p. 8) and even the European Parliament in their Initiative Report in response to the Farm to Fork Strategy calls on the Commission to promote a societal dialogue on a common understanding of sustainability and its various components, on the path towards its proposal for a legislative framework for a sustainable food system (2021, p. 13). ...
SEEDS OF TRANSITION? A Critical Discourse Analysis of Transition in the EU Farm to Fork Strategy from the Perspective of Cultivated Diversity
Thesis
Full-text available
  • Jul 2022
This research adopts the principles of sustainability transition management, within the Multi Level Perspective (MLP), to analyse the EU Farm to Fork Strategy (together with the complementary Biodiversity Strategy) on four levels: the definition of sustainability it wants to achieve, what form of governance is proposed for the transition, whether a shift in relationships of power is envisaged and what practices are implied to constitute sustainable farming. I compare and contrast the content of the Strategies with three main pillars of sustainability from the perspective of cultivated diversity: 1. seeds: form part of wider socio-economic and cultural-ecological interactions between farmers and their communities, and their diversity is the outcome of interactions that value it; 2. farmers: with their proactive management have historically maintained genetic diversity in seed and fields as custodians of the landscape; 3. practices: diversity in seed and landscape is determined by breeding and growing practices; when localised, distributed, knowledge intensive, in synergy with the rest of the ecosystem, these are often termed agroecological. My question with regards to transition management is then whether the strategy is actually leading a transformational process of change as it claims to be doing. Independent of what it claims, I also investigate whether the Strategy might offer a window of opportunity for change in the context of the historical transition that - in its attempt to address the shortcomings of the Green Revolution and industrialisation of farming - has led us to the contemporary focus on ‘sustainable agriculture’. In the language of MLP the Strategy is a policy artefact of the regime, which reacts to and takes a stand on a process of ongoing change, under pressure at the landscape level by climate change and biodiversity loss, and in the face of increased visibility of and popular support for alternative ways of farming. In doing that, it prompts both other regime and niche players to respond. My observations lead me to conclude that, while the Strategy may only aim at a trajectory adjustment to the current paradigm of industrialised productivist agriculture (rooted in economic growth, the dominance of the market and fuelled by technological innovation), rather than transformational change, it does open a window of opportunity for transitional change, in so far as it provides further anchoring of the cultivated diversity niche to the regime and a better-grounded negotiating space for cultivated diversity to take advocacy forward.
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... Although not invariably the case, nor has the same path been followed everywhere, the biophysical study of agroecosystems from a historical perspective can be used to analyse their evolution in different socioeconomic contexts. These analyses will help inform the adoption of public policies that farmers' organizations claim will promote more sustainable farming practices (IAASTD, 2009;FAO, 2018;IPES-Food, 2019;European Commission, 2020;Duncan et al., 2020). ...
Socio-ecological transition in a Mediterranean agroecosystem: What energy flows tell us about agricultural landscapes ruled by landlords, peasants and tourism (Mallorca, 1860-1956-2012)
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Using several energy returns on investment indicators (multi-EROI), this article analyses the socioecological transition of an agroecosystem in the western Mediterranean on the island of Mallorca (Spain) over a period of 150 years which saw a change from traditional organic farming to a fossil fuel-based system of agriculture. This circular bioeconomic analysis evaluates the agroecosystem's capacity to produce goods by reproducing itself in 1860, 1956 and 2012. In 1860 land and livestock were mostly in the hands of a few landowners, who kept agroecosystems away from the full productive capacity of traditional organic farming so as to increase land rents by lowering wages. The bankruptcy of these large estates increased peasant access to land at the end of the nineteenth and the first third of the twentieth centuries. Peasant farms were mainly solar-based and combined polyculture with a large number of small flocks, thus creating complex and attractive Mediterranean biocultural landscapes with higher EROIs. By 1956, these had practically reached the limits of traditional organic farming and early became a residual activity within the tourism specialization of the economy. As everywhere, conventional farming reduced agrarian eco-efficiency through production increases achieved at the cost of greater dependence on external fossil fuel-based inputs, a loss of biophysical circularity and lower EROIs. In Mallorca, however, this took place at the same time as agriculture was subsumed by the tourist economy, leading to a more partial and less widespread adoption of Green Revolution techniques than in other parts of Spain. Although agroecosystem live funds were undermined and the reproduction of Mallorcan biocultural landscapes was placed at risk, an important heritage of biocultural peasant agriculture still survives as a resource for the future.
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... The new Farm to Fork Strategy (e.g. Duncan et al. 2020) of the European Union responds to an urgent need to reduce environmental footprint but maintaining food production in European agriculture. Incentives, infrastructure and legal framework can expand access to precision farming (e.g. ...
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A 21. század legnagyobb kihívásai a globális és lokális természeti és társadalmi problémákhoz kapcsolódnak: a 2020-as évek elején a világ visszafordíthatatlanul alakul át körülöttünk. Online és offline tevékenységeink megváltoztak, fogyasztási szokásaink és prioritásaink átrendeződtek: új szempontok befolyásolják rövid és hosszú távú döntéseinket. Ezen átalakulások során a zöld gondolkodás és a fenntartható fejlődés kérdésköre megkerülhetetlenné vált: egyre jobban befolyásolja életünket és minden-napjainkat a klímaváltozás, illetve a klímaváltozás okaival és közvetett és közvetlen hatásaival kapcsolatos tudásunk. Jelen kötet célja, hogy a zöld üzleti gondolkodással és a zöld marketinggel kapcsolatos magyar kutatásokat 2023 nyarán összegezze. Egyrészt be szeretnénk mutatni a legaktuálisabb kutatások eredményeit, ezzel is segítve a döntéshozók munkáját. Másrészt lehetőségeket és jó példákat is szeretnénk prezentálni: olyan megoldásokat – és azok korlátait – amelyek jelenleg is működnek, vagy működhetnek, és amelyeket követve a gazdaság szereplői is hozzájárulhatnak egy fenntarthatóbb jövő megalkotásához.
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