How current EU agri-food debate narrows food security to production and farming, while avoiding questions of value, affordability, and who the system ultimately serves
Setting the direction of Europe’s agri-food debate
The EU Agri-Food Days (15–17 December), the European Commission’s flagship platform for presenting its agri-food priorities for the year ahead, have just concluded. Intended to offer a clear direction for agri-food policy in the coming years, they left many food system actors with much to reflect on. What is emphasised matters – but so does what is left aside.
This year, farmers were at the centre of discourse and budgets. Political messaging consistently highlighted their role as the backbone of Europe’s agri-food system, alongside commitments to protect farmers’ livelihoods and provide greater stability for the sector. This focus, however, came with a narrowing of perspective. Food systems were largely reduced to farming, and food security was discussed primarily in terms of production capacity, self-sufficiency, and resilience at farm level.
Competitiveness and sustainability objectives were frequently presented together, yet concrete instruments to reconcile these aims remain unclear. Signals encouraging sustainable transition were not matched with, for instance, measures to address rising consumer prices. In a context of economic uncertainty, affordability constraints risk undermining local and sustainable initiatives, creating a catch-22 in which farmers face rising costs, consumers face affordability pressures, and sustainability struggles to scale.
The missing perspective: people, health outcomes, environmental and social sustainability
What received the least attention was the role of people within the food system. Consumer perspectives are largely absent in the current priorities. While food security featured prominently, access to affordable, nutritious food was rarely spoken of. A broader food-system lens, including food environments and downstream impacts, was left out.
This matters. If the food produced through Europe’s agri-food system does not support people’s health or environmental sustainability, the policy rationale for food production itself becomes difficult to sustain. Agriculture cannot be meaningfully discussed in isolation from its downstream effects, particularly on diets and chronic disease, at a time when diet-related factors account for a significant share of mortality in Europe, while subsidy structures continue to prioritise commodity production over nutritious food. The impact of agricultural choices also extends beyond diet-related chronic disease, with pesticides providing a striking example of how production methods can harm both human health (including that of farmers) and the environment, while impacting food security in the long term. The recent omnibus proposal on food and feed sends a worrying signal that these critical dimensions are being overlooked by the Commission in its approach to agri-food policymaking.
Broadening the scope of food security to encompass a long-term outlook
If Europe is to move beyond this impasse, the agri-food policy debate will need to widen. Food security cannot be reduced to short-term gains in production alone. It must also encompass access, affordability, and public interest outcomes, including health and environmental outcomes. This requires re-centring people, both producers and consumers, within food policy discussions, with a right-based approach that champions the right to food, health, and a healthy environment as core tenets of policy making. It demands to push for reconsideration of costs to reflect on actual nutritional qualities and long-term implication of products to better reflect the real costs and value of food. And, last but not least, it requires moving beyond a food security debate that focuses on short-term consideration to one that explicitly accounts for the long-term implications of food production and consumption, aligning economic, social, environmental, and health goals.
Stronger governance coherence across agriculture, food, social, environmental and economic policy will be essential. Without an integrated food-systems approach that centres long-term sustainability in the broader sense, with equity as the underpinning value to realise across the system, Europe risks locking in current tensions rather than resolving them. A more honest and inclusive debate is needed if agri-food policy is to deliver resilience that truly serves society as a whole.
Dining and Cooking