• Introduction
• Policy Highlights
• EU Policy Recommendations
• Authors
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Introduction

The European Commission has committed to reform food systems towards sustainability with the development of a legislative framework under the Farm to Fork Strategy. [1]. This initiative (SFS) is expected to see light at the end of 2023. This policy brief aims to spotlight 4 guiding principles that should underpin the SFS framework, if it is to effectively strengthen the sustainability and resilience of our food systems.

This policy brief argues that human rights, and in particular the right to food and nutrition, should be the overarching objective of this SFS framework. The brief also offers concrete guidance for policy coherence. It further argues that participatory mechanisms for decision-making according a territorial approach, business accountability instruments and the link between human rights and sustainability are key for a democratic and sustainable transition.

1. The EU transition to sustainable food systems should be rights-based. Human rights provisions should be enshrined in the preamble and as an objective of the Sustainable Food Systems (SFS) framework [2] that will define how future EU food systems are shaped and governed. The human right to adequate food and nutrition and the human rights of peasants and others working in rural areas, as recognised in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants (UNDROP), are of paramount importance.
2. The EU transition to sustainable food systems needs to be democratic, ensuring citizen participation in policy design and implementation. The EU should address the democratic deficit in food systems and put citizens [3] at the centre of food system transformation. Food Policy Councils should be established at different levels according a territorial approach. The councils, from local to EU level, should bring together all segments of food systems, overcoming the consumer/producer dichotomy and ensuring cross-sectoral collaboration, context-adjusted interventions and policy coherence.
3. The EU transition to sustainable food systems should implement accountability frameworks to regulate business activities. The SFS framework must ensure that Member States, as duty bearers, respect, protect, and fulfil public interest. Binding corporate accountability frameworks are indispensable to hold corporations liable for their actions or omissions, guaranteeing remedy for victims. Provisions are needed to implement safeguards and protect against conflicts of interest.
4. Sustainability in the SFS framework should be understood as contributing to the achievement of social and ecological justice and to the fulfilment of human rights. The new EU legislation should address the structural causes of unsustainability and deal with the interconnections of shrinking natural resource stocks, commodification of nature and social inequities. It should contain minimum sustainability requirements that articulate together all its social and ecological dimensions. The legal framework for mainstreaming sustainability in all food related policies should build upon a holistic approach and strong understanding of the term. A ‘strong sustainability’ contributes to the fulfilment of human rights, and in particular to the rights to life, food, and a healthy environment.

Policy Highlights

• The EU transition to sustainable food systems should be rights-based. Human rights provisions should be enshrined in the preamble and as an objective of the Sustainable Food Systems (SFS) framework.
• The EU transition to sustainable food systems needs to be democratic, ensuring citizen participation in policy design and implementation.
• The EU transition to sustainable food systems should implement accountability frameworks to regulate business activities.
• Sustainability in the SFS framework should be understood as contributing to the achievement of social and ecological justice and to the fulfilment of human rights.

EU Policy Recommendations

The EU transition to sustainable food systems should be rights-based. The EU should build food systems based on ‘food as a human right’ and put at their core the human rights of peasants and rural workers.

According to the EU Farm to Fork strategy1, food systems should ensure healthy people and a healthy planet now and in the future. However, numbers of food insecure people are increasing [4] while millions of farmers are not guaranteed a fair income and a decent living. As farmers are retiring, younger farmers are facing multiple barriers to entry, including the high cost of land, as a result of the structural promotion of market-oriented agriculture in the EU. Between 2003 and 2016, 32% of farms have disappeared, with the strongest decline among small farms. [5]

The EU must adopt a food systems approach that considers food as a human right instead of a commodity. This approach is based on an understanding of food as a human life enabler, connected to local ecological conditions, cultures and knowledge. It should ensure the social, economic, climatic and ecological conditions are met for present and future generations to have ‘access at all times to adequate food
or the means for its procurement’. Sustainable food system transformation must be steered towards the realisation of all human rights overall, ensuring their indivisibility, interdependence and interrelatedness.

The EU has failed to properly address the indivisibility of human rights. A breach currently exists in EU law neglecting the interconnection of the right to life or the right to human dignity [6], embedded in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, with the right to adequate food and nutrition and the human rights of peasants and rural workers under international law. To address this breach, the SFS framework should be bound towards the fulfilment of the human right to adequate food and nutrition, so as to link the well-being of the planet with the well-being of its people. [7]

To implement the right to food and the rights of peasants in the EU, structural changes must occur since the policy environment impacting food is currently incongruent with the objectives of the SFS framework. For example, the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (Mifid II) sees food as a commodity derivative, allowing speculative practices along the food chain and fuelling food prices volatility that leave millions of people without access to adequate food.

The EU Competition Law aims to render the European Single Market competitive, at the expense of human rights and planetary boundaries. The Common Agriculture Policy, which is designed to complement artificially low market prices, incentivises unsustainable practices and disregards social conditionalities. The interdependence of human rights requires the EU and Member States to attend to their obligations via the regulation of trade, finance and investment policies as well as other policy domains such as agriculture, climate and environment in a coherent manner. This can be done if the SFS framework is designed as an ambitious horizontal law with the overarching objective of fulfilling human rights and respecting their indivisibility.

The EU transition to sustainable food systems should be democratic and ensure citizen participation. The EU should adopt a people-centred approach to foster meaningful change.

The European Commission has recognised that a ‘shift to a sustainable food system can bring environmental, health and social benefits, offer economic gains and ensure that the recovery from the crisis puts us onto a sustainable path, [8] however, the Commission is prioritising certain actors based on their economic potential and activity. Proposed solutions for food system reform are consequently market-driven.

This approach may perpetuate current injustices and health problems, where access to adequate food depends on purchasing power. EU citizens are understood as consumers or producers; there is a lack of consideration and support for people’s agency to contribute actively to food systems transformation.

The EU must ensure citizens’ voices are heard through public and participatory governance mechanisms in the SFS framework. These mechanisms should be connected at multiple levels, from local to national and European level, adopting a territorial approach to food systems.

This approach to governance should capture the multi-dimensional and dynamic interpretations of sustainable food systems across different socio-ecological contexts in Europe. It should avoid adopting a single framing and should recognise the plurality of visions that exists in democratic societies. By adopting such an approach, the EU will act in line with its mandate as elaborated in the EU Action Plan for Human rights and Democracy, which recognises people’s [9] right to self-organise in order to meaningfully participate in the decisions affecting their lives, and the recently approved Council conclusions on the role of the civic space in protecting and promoting fundamental rights in the EU.

To achieve this, Food Policy Councils should be established at different scales, that involve food systems’ actors from initial policy design up to implementation and monitoring. The active participation of citizens whose human rights are the most at risk should be prioritised, especially people or citizens who are economically marginalised or who face cultural, gender, racial or other kinds of discrimination. Youth, women and migrant workers’ organisations should also be supported to play a key role in food governance.

New mechanisms for coordination and practice sharing across scales should inform policymakers and various actors of the food system. The EU should guarantee funding modalities that prioritise this bottom-up and localised, participatory approach to food governance, while linking with discussions at national and European levels to develop common understanding and vision. The role of the European Committee of the Regions and the European Social and Economic Committee could
be fundamental in promoting a territorial approach to food systems that enables context-specific action.

The EU transition to sustainable food systems should adopt clear accountability frameworks to regulate business activities. The SFS framework must distinguish public from private interest of the actors involved and set obligations and responsibilities accordingly.

Large financial benefits from food production, processing and distribution have been obtained as a result of externalising costs, including ecosystem destruction, greenhouse gas emissions, natural resources grabbing, precarious livelihoods, exploitative working conditions, unfair prices for farmers and public health problems. These impacts have occurred hand to hand with the concentration of economic and political power in the food chain. [10]

Corporate players have progressively played a key role in setting the political agenda for food systems. Business actors have achieved undue influence by obtaining control in the definition of focus and content of the legislative frames regulating their activities. Their influence has been reinforced by the rise of multi-stakeholderism, [11] which is increasingly gaining traction to address global food governance issues. In this context, it is urgent to democratically decide who should be invited to the policy table and what role each actor should play in decision making.

The SFS framework should integrate current normative developments in the area of business and human rights, such as the EU directive proposal on Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence and the UN legally-binding instrument (LBI) regulating business under international human rights law. [12] Transparency criteria along decision-making processes should be in place to enable right-holders to hold Member States accountable for any action taken in relation to food systems. The SFS framework should clearly distinguish roles and objectives within food systems and avoid an interchangeable treatment of different public and private actors in a multi-stakeholder approach. [13] The SFS framework should make public interest the priority under the State duty.

Sustainability in the SFS framework should be understood as contributing to the achievement of social and ecological justice and the fulfilment of human rights. A strong understanding of social and environmental sustainability must be placed at the heart of Sustainable Food Systems.

The SFS framework’s series of consultations draw from a weak interpretation of ‘sustainability’ in environmental economics. [14] Weak sustainability entails offsets between natural resources depletion and human welfare. This notion is based in utility and upholds investment in technology and infrastructure to compensate declining stocks of natural resources.

This interpretation promotes sustainability standards which can be achieved with financialisation of carbon capture, modified organisms (including New Breeding Techniques), or precision agriculture without considering economic or ecological distribution costs at present or in the future. Instead, the EU should endorse a‘strong sustainability’ that contributes to socio-ecological justice and the implementation of all human rights.

The European Commission should work towards a consensus around its definition of sustainability and its indicators for minimum sustainability requirements. These requirements should be operationalised through multicriteria [15] frameworks that bring multiple values and perspectives around food systems, avoiding a reductionist approach based on utility. The formulation of the SFS framework must create the space and conditions for political dialogue among actors to reach a compromise on the definition of sustainable food systems and how to assess them.

A strong sustainability considers ecosystems and natural resources as irreplaceable and closely intertwined with socio-cultural patterns, because they provide unique and essential life-support for present and future generations without being compromised. The SFS framework should recognise the role of agroecology and localised food systems as key enablers of sustainable food systems.

Authors:

• Almudena Garcia I Sastre - EU Advocacy Officer, FIAN Europe
• Morgan Ody, Farmer and ECVC coordinating commitee member
• Emma Courtine, Policy Officer, ECVC

COACH is an EU funded project which aims to facilitate collaboration between farmers, consumers, local governments and other actors to scale up short agri-food chains which rebalance farmers’ position, create win-wins for producers and consumers and drive innovation in territorial food systems. https://coachproject.eu

FIAN International is a human rights organisation committed to the struggle of grassroots social movements around the globe to defend and protect the Right to Food and Nutrition and induce a paradigm shift sustained by food sovereignty principles.

European Coordination Via Campesina (ECVC) is a confederation of unions and organisations of peasant farmers, small and medium-scale farmers, and agricultural workers across Europe. Rooted in the right to Food Sovereignty, it works at acquiring fair, solidarity-based and sustainable food and agricultural policies that respond to current food, climate and biodiversity crises.