A food policy for Europe
Attention in Brussels is focused once again on the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). The cycle of reforms that is now underway could see further adjustments of the CAP for the post-2020 period. The success of these reforms tends to be gaged in political terms: a ‘successful’ CAP reform is one in which a policy created 60 years ago is ingeniously reframed, rebalanced, and rebranded to meet changing expectations and spread dissatisfaction more or less equally.
A ‘successful’ CAP reform thus defined, however, can come and go without any meaningful progress in addressing the challenge of building sustainable food systems in Europe. The problem with the CAP is not only what it does, but what as an agricultural policy it does not and cannot do.
Europe urgently needs a food policy (or a ‘Common Food Policy’). There are five key reasons why this shift is required, and why the time is now ripe for it to occur.