Farm to Fork: the new European blunder that foretells an ecological disaster

 

In our polarized society, causes are embraced with a fervor that is rarely applied to the problems that truly affect our immediate surroundings. These causes, of course, are usually driven by activists who are delighted to be part of the golden dream of some lobby group with enough resources to make everything seem like a moral crusade. The problem is that the logic of many contemporary social movements is based on the idea that all struggles are interconnected: to support one is to support them all. And, naturally, the issue of food could not escape this trend.

In the West, where food security is more than sufficient thanks to technological advances in agriculture, the protests and demands that, if implemented, would end up harming the very countryside they claim to protect, strike me as little more than a science fiction spectacle. But be warned, even on a continent that does not go hungry and whose agricultural sector remains strong, the insistence of these demands has managed to make the leap... to Brussels.

The European Union’s ambitious farm-to-fork strategy, a cornerstone of the European Green Deal, is presented as the roadmap for a fairer, healthier, and, of course, environmentally friendly food system. It sounds so perfect it almost hurts. Its goals to achieve this? Well, methods that will do just the opposite: drastically reduce the use of pesticides and fertilizers, and push for organic farming until 25% of Europe's agricultural land is ‘bio’ by 2030. In theory, the consumption of ‘zero-kilometer’ products should cut CO₂ emissions, and Europe could sleep soundly, satisfied with its ecological footprint.

But, as always, reality has a dark sense of humor: fewer fertilizers and pesticides mean more modest crop yields, and therefore organic farming is less productive and would need to cover more land to match conventional output. Impact studies from the USDA and the EU's Joint Research Centre warn that the farm-to-fork strategy could reduce European agricultural production by up to 12%.

The ‘zero-kilometer’ concept also sounds great, as it reduces the distance food travels, theoretically cutting transport emissions and supporting local farmers. But in practice, it’s not always so effective because food transportation often accounts for a small fraction of a product's total emissions. If Europe produces less because it switches to organic farming, it will need to import more food from abroad to feed its 450 million mouths, typically from countries where production is less efficient and more emissions-intensive. The result: the local ‘zero-kilometer’ savings do not compensate for the increase in global emissions. In other words, carbon leakage, or as activists in Brussels like to call it, ‘sustainability outsourcing’. While Europe congratulates itself on its emissions reduction, the rest of the world is left to literally foot the environmental bill: disappearing forests, jungles turned into farmland, and devastated carbon sinks. But don’t worry, we can keep breathing relatively clean air here while the Earth suffers in the other hemisphere.

The final irony is that the promotion of organic farming, intended to protect local biodiversity, could be causing the opposite on a global scale. Europe feels like a green leader while exporting deforestation and emissions to countries with laxer regulations. It’s all very coherent... if we ignore the fact that the entire planet has no ecological borders. In short, the farm-to-fork strategy has the unique talent of turning, as always, a good European intention into self-deception.