Reclaiming food sovereignty: an alternative approach to trade and agriculture

The European Union’s approach to trade and agriculture is damaging Europe’s farmers and threatening our food security

In recent months, European countries have been swept by massive farmers’ protests. Though often a reaction to specific national policies (proposals to scrap tax breaks for agricultural diesel, proposed reductions in nitrogen emissions, etc), the common thread uniting the protests is the farmers’ opposition to the growing economic and bureaucratic burdens associated with the European Union’s climate and environmental agenda — first and foremost, the European Green Deal. Farmers have good reasons to oppose these policies, which risk decimating small and mid-sized farms while achieving little, if anything, in terms of climate and/or environmental benefits.

However, it’s important for the public to understand — and for farmers to explain, to maintain public support — the wider context of these protests. An uninformed observer might think that European farmers were doing fine until the EU’s “green” agenda came along to ruin the party — or worse, that farmers oppose these policies on ideological grounds. Nothing could be further from the truth. The reality is that small and mid-sized farmers have been struggling for years with rising costs, over-regulation, the practices of corporate cartels along the entire supply chain, and, most notably, unfair competition driven by the EU’s free trade regime. Indeed, farms have been disappearing at an alarming rate across the EU.

In my latest report for the think tank MCC Brussels, I explain how EU policies — and particularly the EU’s free trade regime — are harming small farmers, and even threatening Europe’s long-term food security. The report calls for a fundamental shift towards food sovereignty, prioritising domestic production and reducing the bloc’s reliance on imports.

Here’s a brief overview of the report:

Current challenges in EU agriculture

• The EU paradox: a thriving agricultural sector failing farmers. The EU is one the world’s leading agricultural powers, with total output worth over €500 billion per year. Agricultural incomes as a whole have been growing for years. Despite this, small and mid-sized farms are struggling: most farms in Europe are unable to provide a decent income for those who manage them — often families.

• Consolidation and concentration. Over the past two decades, the EU’s agricultural sector has undergone a massive process of concentration and consolidation, with large farms increasingly dominating the market. The EU has lost five million farms in the past 20 years, disappearing at an average of 800 farms per day. This has resulted in a dramatic decline of small farms, which provide numerous economic and societal benefits. Consolidation has led to increased economic productivity and efficiency, but has also harmed the livelihoods of small farmers and accelerated the decline of rural communities. Perhaps even more crucially, as this report shows, this structural change represents a threat to European food security in the long run.

• Production of primary agricultural products no longer a priority. Concentration of farm ownership has been accompanied by a shift away from the production of low-value, but essential, primary agricultural commodities towards the production of high-value, but not essential, processed agri-foods. There are ideological and economic reasons for this. The EU’s adoption of green ideology means that agricultural production, as the second-largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, has gradually become a taboo in Europe. From a big business point of view, the production of basic foodstuffs is also seen as less profitable than the production of processed foods.

• Growing import dependency. Thanks to the Common Agricultural Policy’s (CAP) original focus on food sovereignty, the EU remains broadly self-sufficient in many primary agricultural commodities. Yet as a result of current policies, its self-sufficiency rates have declined for many primary products over the past two decades. Meanwhile, it remains heavily dependent on imports for key inputs like oilseeds and protein crops. This growing import dependency poses risks to European food security, especially given the volatility of global markets and geopolitics.

• The EU’s free trade obsession: a threat to farmers and food security. The EU has the largest free trade regime in the world, with 42 free trade agreements (FTAs) covering 74 partner countries. These agreements generally benefit large agri-food corporations at the expense of small farmers. The negotiation process for these agreements lacks transparency and democratic scrutiny, further marginalising the interests of smaller farmers. The EU’s trade policy, by using imports of primary agricultural commodities from third countries as a bargaining chip to promote the export of EU industrial agri-food products, undermines the EU’s long-term food security by exposing domestic producers to unfair competition and increasing the EU’s import dependency.

• Free trade: a textbook case of climate hypocrisy. The report also highlights the hypocrisy of the EU’s climate policy. On the one hand, the EU imposes stringent regulations on European producers to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which threatens to drive farmers out of the market and reduce domestic production. On the other hand, it promotes international trade through free trade agreements that will only lead to increased emissions and increased agricultural imports from countries with lower environmental standards.

Current challenges in EU agriculture

• Growing resistance. European farmers and civil-society organisations are increasingly opposing FTAs that disadvantage local agriculture. Europe-wide protests by angry farmers, plus the recent rejection of CETA by the French Senate and widespread opposition to the EU-Mercosur agreement, reflect this growing resistance.

• Rejection of the free trade paradigm. This report argues for rejecting
  the EU’s current free trade paradigm in favour of the original “Community preference” principle of the Common Agricultural Policy. This principle emphasised domestic production to meet local demand before resorting to imports.

• Environmental and economic benefits. Increasing domestic production would not only support European farmers and consumers, but also reduce the environmental impact associated with long-distance trade.

• Feasibility of domestic production. Research indicates that the EU has significant potential to increase the production of many agricultural goods, which could replace imports without causing major price rises. This includes products like oilseeds, pulses, vegetables and fruits.

Conclusion

The report concludes that the EU’s current trade and agriculture policies are flawed and unsustainable. The ongoing consolidation of agricultural production benefits large corporations at the expense of small farmers and rural communities. To ensure Europe’s long-term food security and support for European farmers, the EU must return to its original focus on food sovereignty. This means rejecting harmful FTAs, reducing import dependency, prioritising the production of food over unrealistic environmental targets, and implementing policies that favour domestic agricultural production. We should stand with and support Europe’s farmers, not treat them as a problem to be disposed of or replaced.

Read the full report here.

***

Putting out high-quality journalism requires constant research, most of which goes unpaid, so if you appreciate my writing please consider upgrading to a paid subscription if you haven’t already. Aside from a fuzzy feeling inside of you, you’ll get access to exclusive articles and commentary.

Thomas Fazi

Website: thomasfazi.net

Twitter: @battleforeurope 

Latest book: The Covid Consensus: The Global Assault on Democracy and the Poor—A Critique from the Left (co-authored with Toby Green)