The [Farm to Fork, or] F2F strategy, as part of the [European Green Deal, or] EGD, reduces the production of agriculture within the EU and induces an increase in food prices. This is expected to further fuel consumer price inflation within the EU and beyond. Farmers’ incomes within the EU are expected to increase.
The F2F strategy results in the redistribution of rents from consumers to farmers in the EU. Studies assessing the economic impact of the F2F strategy reveal, on average, a decline in welfare within the EU due to the F2F targets’ implementation.
However, the studies do not completely quantify the environmental and health benefits of the F2F strategy. Doubts remain regarding whether its impacts on the environment and human health will be sufficient to compensate for the calculated decline in welfare.
Doubts also remain regarding the logical consistency of the F2F objectives and the targets and links to the EGD and the objectives of nCAP. The decline in agriculture output within the EU may result in leakage effects in regions outside the EU, undermining the EGD objectives.
Achieving the targets under the F2F strategy is expected to increase soil cultivation. Soil cultivation has been linked to an increase in GHG emissions. The effect of the F2F strategy on reducing GHG emissions, the core objective of the strategy, remains highly questionable. Although studies assessing the F2F have reported the positive effects of GHG emissions, the changes in land use practices remained unexplored.
A positive effect of the F2F strategy on food security also remains questionable. All studies predicted a decrease in output for the EU and an increase in food prices. The production of agricultural products such as cereals and other crops is exposed to a higher level of production risks by having fewer strategies available caused by a reduction in pesticide use for responding to biotic and abiotic stresses.
This is expected to decrease the food security of low-income households within the EU and to reduce the EU contribution to food security abroad.
The impact on biodiversity of the F2F strategy is difficult to assess. Different forms of agriculture have different effects on biodiversity. Whether the effect will be positive or negative depends on how biodiversity is measured.
Using measures that consider number of some species and some abundance among species may not induce a higher level of biodiversity, following the F2F strategy’s targets. A more detailed assessment would require ranking the value of species, and this raises the question of implementing the ranking and civil society’s participation in it. One study used a biodiversity indicator and reported a positive impact on biodiversity at the farm level.
The implications discussed are based on the assumption that no further drastic changes for technological and institutional changes are to be expected. In the longer run, the F2F strategy can be expected to result in input factor reallocation, increasing production and allocation efficiency in agriculture within the EU. These changes will take time.
At the policy level, the time length of these changes can be influenced. Factor reallocation can be made easier by reducing restrictions on the exchange of land or on foreign direct investments from within and outside the EU. Technological change can be supported by reducing the time needed to get alternatives to chemical pesticides approved for application and providing stronger incentives for using modern biotechnology to address the several challenges in crop production.
EU policy makers have it in their own hands translating the F2F strategy into a well-being-increasing strategy by implementing the institutional changes needed.
