3. Sustainable carrots, not unsustainable sticks
The Commission wants farming to decarbonize and pollute less, but farmers should be seen as part of the solution, not the problem, the vision argues. That means fewer penalties and more incentives, while food companies and retailers should bear as much of the climate and environmental burden — though how they’ll be held accountable remains unclear.
The slew of environmental derogation requests from farmers shows that “one-size-fits-all approaches” don’t work, the Commission says. That’s why the midyear CAP simplification will give EU countries more flexibility, shifting the CAP “away from conditions to incentives,” including for “streamlined” ecosystem services.
The plan includes stronger support for carbon farming, bioenergy production, organic and agroecological practices, and the bioeconomy and circularity. Brussels also wants biopesticides and new genomic techniques to reach the market faster — with a proposal on biopesticides promised this year — while biotechnologies need scaling up.
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) should get a larger budget to speed up safety assessments and clear regulatory bottlenecks. That said, not all innovations are welcome. The paper warns that “certain food innovation is sometimes seen as a threat” — a not-so-subtle nod to cultivated meat. It “calls for an enhanced dialogue,” which effectively means a freeze.
Meanwhile, livestock “is and will remain an essential part of” the EU’s food system, with its own dedicated “work stream” to boost competitiveness. Feed additives “will be essential” to making the sector more sustainable.
4. More homegrown food and feed, and a crackdown on imports
The final text slightly tones down some of the trade protectionist language from an earlier draft, but the Commission is still sounding the alarm over Europe’s dependency on imported agricultural inputs, from fertilizers to animal feed. Right now, the EU heavily relies on key fertilizer imports from Russia, Belarus and North Africa, while soy for animal feed comes mostly from South and North America.
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