The EU Farm to Fork Strategy has been repeatedly attacked and questioned by industrial farm lobbies, a number of conservative MEPs, and agri-business firms, which the publication of two controversial and incomplete “impact studies” has only kept fueling.
These studies published by the USDA (the United States Department of Agriculture) and Wageningen University & Research attempted to evaluate the Farm to Fork’s economic impact and concluded that the proposed changes would lay the ground for a significant reduction in EU agricultural productivity, competitiveness and farmers’ income.
What the critics of the Farm to Fork Strategy omit to say, is that these studies are partial and incomplete. Partial because, as noted by IPES-Food, Corporate Europe Observatory, and the European Consumer Organization (BEUC), the study published by Wageningen University was sponsored by CropLife Europe of the pesticide industry.
Incomplete, because they only consider the impacts the Strategy may have on food production, whilst ignoring the changes in consumer behaviour that would result from the strategies’ other objectives.
…
These studies refuse to acknowledge the changes already happening, from initiatives to tackle food waste to shifts in people’s diets and to farmers turning to nature-friendly agriculture.
