Agricultural Outlook Conference 2023: “Sowing the Future of EU Agriculture”

The EU Agricultural Outlook conference is an annual event that convenes stakeholders to discuss trends, policies, and market developments and provides a dialogue platform between policymakers and the agricultural sector. This year, the conference was part of the first ever edition of the EU Agri-Food Days that took place in Brussels from 5 to 8 December.  

The 2023 edition of the EU Agricultural Outlook conference attracted more than 700 participants from 56 countries on-site and about 3400 participants online. The conference opened with a video message by Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, which was followed by remarks by European Commissioner for Agriculture Janusz Wojciechowski.  

FAO participated in the Conference at a session entitled “Ensuring food security - how will farmers live up to the challenge?”. FAO Senior Economist, Lorenzo Bellù presented four scenarios for agrifood systems in 2030, in 2050, and beyond that. These scenarios were based on FAO’s publication: The future of food and agriculture – Drivers and triggers for transformation; a document that builds on previous reports in the same series as well as on a comprehensive corporate strategic foresight exercise that also nurtured the FAO Strategic Framework 2022–31.  

In his presentation, FAO also highlighted the link between agrifood systems and socioeconomic systems and how both are surrounded by environmental systems.  

The 2023 Medium-Term Outlook report for major EU agricultural markets until 2035 was also presented at the Conference. 

You can learn more about this event here.