EU Vision of Agriculture and Food: Simplification and innovation, but how green?

Brussels – Simplification, digitalization and innovation. There is no reference to what was a central strategy of the European Union’s Green Deal, which aimed to make food systems fair, healthy, and environmentally friendly: the Farm to Fork strategy. These are the words—present or absent—that can describe the Vision for Agriculture and Food, which, unveiled today by the European Commission, aims to make the European Union’s agrifood sector “attractive, competitive, resilient, future-oriented, and fair” for the producers of today and tomorrow.

“The Vision is our decisive response to the call of the agri-food sector,” Executive Vice President Raffaele Fitto commented at a press conference, recalling the street demonstrations that have taken place in recent months across Europe. In drafting it, “the Commission started from some simple but crucial principles: Agriculture and food are strategic sectors for the EU, food security and food sovereignty are non-negotiable, food is an essential part of our economic competitiveness,” he pointed out. All elements that did not go unnoticed in Rome, with the Minister of Agriculture, Food Sovereignty and Forestry, Francesco Lollobrigida, who called the Vision “a real change of course, sharp and radical, compared to the strategies of the last five years, which chased ideological visions that flatten the Green Deal on a supposed environmental protection, all at the expense of the production system, with serious criticalities, especially in the agricultural world.” It is no coincidence, then, that the Vision, in its 27 pages, does not even mention the Farm to Fork strategy, which, launched in 2020, was at the heart of the EU Green Deal and intended to accelerate the EU’s transition to a sustainable food system that was to “have a neutral or positive environmental impact”; “help mitigate climate change and adapt to its impacts”; “reverse the loss of biodiversity”; “ensure food security, nutrition and public health by ensuring that everyone has access to sufficient, safe, nutritious and sustainable food”; and “preserve the affordability of food while generating more equitable economic returns by promoting the competitiveness of the EU’s supply sector and fair trade.”

The Vision for Agriculture and Food unveiled today outlines four priority areas that can be summarized in many adjectives for the sector: attractive, competitive and resilient, adapted to future needs, ensuring fair living and working conditions in rural areas. Ascribed to the first point is the EU’s commitment “to ensure that farmers are not forced to sell their products below production costs systematically.” And it will do so by taking “concrete measures in this sense, including through the revision of the Unfair Trade Practices Directive.” In addition, this year, the Berlaymont Palace will unveil a strategy for generational turnover to address barriers to entry into the profession for young people and recruits.

For competitiveness and resilience of the sector, the Commission will begin taking steps in 2025 to assess the impact of more consistent standards for hazardous pesticides banned in the EU and animal welfare. In particular, Brussels will proceed with a “stronger alignment of production standards applied to imported products, particularly concerning pesticides and animal welfare,” it says. In fact, it will establish a principle that the most dangerous pesticides banned in the EU for health and environmental reasons cannot be reintroduced into the EU through imported products. To move this forward, the Commission will launch the impact assessment in 2025 that will consider impacts on the EU’s competitive position and international implications and, where appropriate, propose changes to the applicable legal framework.

Pesticides are also addressed in the chapter on future needs. Here, the Commission points out that “the introduction of alternatives in the form of biological or innovative low-risk plant protection products has not followed the same pace as the withdrawal of active substances from the EU market,” and “if this trend continues, it may affect the EU’s ability to ensure food production.” Building on this production rationale, Brussels will “consider carefully any further pesticide bans if alternatives are not yet available, unless the pesticide in question poses a threat to human health or the environment on which agriculture relies for its viability.” And in 2025, as part of the fourth-quarter simplification package, it will “propose accelerating the access of biopesticides to the EU market,” “provide a definition of biocontrol active substances, introduce the possibility for member states to grant provisional authorizations for plant protection products containing such biocontrol active substances while their evaluation is still ongoing, and create an accelerated procedure for their approval and authorization.” Finally, concerning living conditions, the Commission will present a rural action plan to ensure that rural areas remain dynamic and will initiate an annual food dialogue with consumers, farmers, industry and public authorities.

The Common Agricultural Policy

The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) “remains essential for supporting farmers’ incomes,” and “CAP direct payments still play a crucial role in supporting and stabilising farm income at the farm level, accounting for an average of 23 per cent of farm income in 2020,” the Vision states. Looking ahead, the Commission will propose in the second quarter of 2025 a comprehensive CAP simplification package to reduce red tape, simplify requirements and support for small and medium-sized farms, and strengthen competitiveness. However, in the future CAP, post-2027, support will be “more directed toward farmers actively engaged in food production, the economic viability of farms, and the preservation of our environment.” In particular, Brussels will “consider making more attractive and extending the use of simplified income support instruments with a simplified system of conditions and controls” for small and medium-sized farmers. In the future, “support should be further targeted toward those farmers who need it most, with special attention to farmers in areas with natural constraints, young and new farmers, and mixed farms,” the Vision specifies. In addition, “enhanced use of measures such as degressivity (a compulsory reduction in direct farm payments per hectare starting at €150,000, ed.) and capping (a threshold, ed.) will be considered, taking into account the different structural and sectoral realities of member states,” and “all farmers should also continue to benefit from instruments such as payments for ecosystem services, which will be simplified and streamlined, as well as investment support and crisis and risk management tools,” the text further specifies.

The positions

“I think in this document we give a very balanced Vision between environmental needs and interlocution with farmers. I think it is important to take into account the choices that have been made in previous years, but it is clear that this is the Vision of this Commission. And it is an approach that we are presenting today with a broad Vision from our point of view, which takes into account the different sensitivities,” specified Fitto. For the coordinator of the ECR Group in the Agriculture Committee (AGRI) and Chairman of the delegation of Fratelli d’Italia to the European Parliament, Carlo Fidanza, the Vision “represents a breath of fresh air for a sector massacred in recent years by excessive bureaucracy and green ideological fury.” Now “the European farmer is no longer an enemy as in the Timmermans era, but back to being the primary guardian of nature, which must be at the centre of every choice,” he pointed out. While Camilla Laureti, PD MEP and vice-president of S&D, Dem in charge of agricultural policies, stressed that the text contains “positive aspects but also, unfortunately, a spectre of backtracking.” The “steps forward” are “on farmers’ income, strengthening their role in the agrifood chain,” but “we cannot but note, with great concern, the step backward taken in the fight against climate change, of which our farmers are also the first victims. Greatly absent then is a real strategy for organic and agroecology,” she added. Cristina Guarda, Greens/Ale MEP, a member of the Agriculture Committee in the EU Parliament, brands the Vision a text made “of catchy rhetoric and of numerous promises,” where “it remains to be seen whether the legislative proposals will actually be effective in preventing the decline of farms in Europe and improving the living conditions of small farmers. One key demand of the Greens remains unsatisfied: basic income support must be benchmarked to the number of jobs, not hectares. And a ceiling must be set, which serves to put small and medium-sized farms at the centre of EU agricultural policy.”

For Greenpeace, “The European Commission‘s new plans for Europe’s agribusiness sector, published today, do little to reduce the environmental, climatic, and socioeconomic threats facing most farmers and ignore the findings of the Commission’s own advisory group.” While Suzy Sumner, Brussels bureau chief for foodwatch international, commented, “Nutrition receives only token mention in the EU’s agricultural vision, with no clear measures. This is outrageous. Europe is facing a health crisis of non-communicable diseases linked to the food we eat, yet mandatory nutrition labelling on the front of the package is completely absent.”