Linking sustainable practices throughout Europe
Towards a Common Food Policy for the European Union
The policy reform and alignment that is required to build sustainable food systems in Europe.
Rural topic(s): Local food Chains, Advocacy on food and rural policies
Type: report/synthesis
Date of publication: February 1, 2019
Organization(s): IPES Food (International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems)
Abstract:
This report makes the case for a Common Food Policy for the European Union. It maps out a single, time-bound vision for reforming European food systems under the umbrella of a Common Food Policy: a policy setting a direction of travel for the whole food system, bringing together the various sectoral policies that affect food production, processing, distribution, and consumption, and refocusing all actions on the transition to sustainability.
The report starts by recapping the sustainability challenges facing the EU’s food and farming systems (Section 1). It then identifies shortcomings in current food systems governance that prevent these challenges being sufficiently addressed, and the potential for remedying these problems under an integrated food policy (Section 2). The report then maps out a new governance architecture for food systems, as the first building block of a Common Food Policy (Section 3). In the following section, proposals are made for reforming, redesigning, and realigning policies under five key objectives, constituting five paradigm shifts that must occur in parallel in order to build sustainable food systems in Europe (Section 4). Finally, conclusions are drawn and next steps are identified in terms of bringing the Common Food Policy vision to fruition (Section 5).
This report is the culmination of a three-year process of research and reflection launched by IPES-Food in April 2016 with various stakeholdrs in order to co-develop a Common Food Policy vision for the EU.
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Informations:
Link: http://www.ipes-food.org/_img/upload/files/CFP_FullReport.pdf
Scale of intervention : European
Keywords: food policy, agricultural policy, local food systems, EU policy
Places: Europe
Actors: stakeholders