In light of Russia’s war on Ukraine and its provocation of an increased need for comprehensive food security policies, the EU has prioritized ensuring both domestic and global food security. EU farmers and producers have been tasked with increasing agricultural production to meet global demands and with assisting in supplying crops that the war has impacted. However, the EU’s increase in food production comes with the risk of increased greenhouse gas emissions and a need for strong policies that ensure agricultural sustainability.
While the EU promised that it would have proposals for a Sustainable Food Systems law ready by the end of 2023, it has not yet released proposals for a Sustainable Food Systems law. The EU promised that its Sustainable Food Systems law would create legally binding obligations to assist with the transition towards sustainable food systems delineated in the EU’s more significant Farm to Fork strategy. The Sustainable Food Systems law was also set to assist with achieving developmental goals like improving access to healthy and affordable food and lessening the concentration of power and wealth in the food industry.
Given that the EU’s agricultural sector accounts for more than 10% of the EU’s total greenhouse gas emissions, primarily due to methane and nitrous oxide release, there is a clear need for increased regulations. The EU’s Farm to Fork (F2F) strategy has four pillars: sustainable food production, sustainable food processing and distribution, sustainable food consumption, and sustainable food loss and waste prevention. The law is a good starting point for EU efforts to decrease its agricultural emissions and sustainably produce food. However, the F2F strategy lacks the follow-through and monitoring mechanisms needed to ensure a decrease in agricultural emissions, as many of the initiatives outlined in the strategy are non-regulatory and do not adequately incentivize farmers to adopt eco-friendly agricultural methods.
One concrete way to lessen the EU’s agricultural emissions outlined in a study commissioned by the European Commission’s Directorate General for Climate Action is putting a price on agricultural greenhouse gas emissions and rewarding farmers for long-term carbon removals. The study identified that the largest sources of the EU’s agricultural emissions are enteric fermentation from livestock, nitrous oxide emissions from synthetic fertilizers, emissions from organic soils caused by agricultural production on drained peatlands, and more. Thus, a policy where polluters must pay for their emissions through regulations, taxes, environmental liability, etc., would create a needed incentive for farmers to adopt more environmentally friendly agricultural practices. However, given that there are risks of a polluter pays principle being regressive, for this type of policy to be most effective, the EU will need to provide adequate support to farmers transitioning to lower emissions practices as well as financial incentives that offset any short-term monetary loss that will result from farmers shifting their agricultural practices.
An additional issue, both with implementing a polluter pays policy and with mitigating EU agricultural emissions more broadly, is the lack of an adequate monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) system that can determine the amount of emissions individual farmers produce. While MRV tools ensure EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) compliance in the EU’s industrial and transportation sectors, MRV tools are not widely implemented in the EU’s agricultural sector. Therefore, EU investments in implementing MRV tools on individual farms will be necessary to administer polluter policies. MRV tools will also be useful in the EU to better grasp what types of farms are producing the most emissions and what programs and policies can best address these emissions.
While the EU’s Farm to Fork Strategy is a step in the right direction of decreasing agricultural emissions, the EU’s development and eventual implementation of a Sustainable Food Systems law, coupled with an investment in MRV tools and incentivizing farmers to shift to eco-friendly agricultural practices, would better assist the EU in achieving both its climate and developmental goals.
This Post was submitted by Climate Scorecard EU Manager Brittany Demogenes.
Learn More Resources:
https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/policies/food-security-and-affordability/
https://epthinktank.eu/2023/03/02/food-security-in-2023-eu-response-to-an-evolving-crisis/
https://climate.ec.europa.eu/sites-0/emission-trading-system-mrv-reporting_en
Image Source: https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/policies/food-security-and-affordability/