Tag: Green Week

View Q&A: Sustainable fishing could be of immense benefit to humanity

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To mark World Oceans Day and EU Green Week, Euronews View spoke to Marine Stewardship Council’s Dr Rohan Currey about how overfishing affects our lives and what could and should be done to make fisheries across the globe more sustainable

When it comes to the food we get from our oceans, the stark reality is that more than one-third of the world’s fish stocks are currently being depleted beyond their sustainable limits. 

We have long treated the ocean as a pit of limitless resources, but overfishing has become one of the main drivers of the decline of ocean wildlife, which represents 80% of the planet’s biodiversity, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (UN FAO).

At the same time, humans worldwide now consume around 144 million tonnes of fish per year — more than double the amount we ate five centuries ago — and demand is only expected to increase as the world’s population grows.

To mark World Oceans Day and the EU Green Week, Euronews View spoke to Dr Rohan Currey, Chief Science and Standards Officer at the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) and a member of its Global Executive Committee, about the causes of overfishing, its consequences, and what can be done to better utilise the world’s oceans as a source of food for us and the generations to come.

Euronews View: This Thursday, which also marks World Oceans Day, your organisation released new figures in a comprehensive report, calling on global governments to address the overfishing crisis. Why do you believe this is the key moment to decide on how to manage fishing in a more sustainable way?

Dr Rohan Currey: The global crisis of overfishing in the oceans is driven by a number of factors, but one of the factors that we’re particularly concerned about is overfishing and the associated effect of overfishing on marine biodiversity. 

This is something that’s been well documented. The UN FAO conducts a report. They write what’s called the SOFIA (The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture) report, which has described that a third of global fish stocks are still overfished and that train is going in the wrong direction, still. 

And this is despite the fact that for 25 years now, ever since the UN FAO produced a code of conduct for responsible fisheries, we’ve had a very good idea of what good fishing practices look like. 

And indeed, in many parts of the world, we’re able to see that applied, and many of those fisheries have been certified by the MSE because of those practices being successful in delivering good outcomes for the oceans. 

So the reason why we’re focused for our campaign on what’s going on with overfishing and how that relates to the oceans is, one underappreciated fact that would be very beneficial to come from managing oceans better is that we would gain a significantly increased amount of seafood from the oceans if we managed them better and that could be of immense benefit to humanity.

Euronews View: When you say managing things better, what does that mean in practice? Could you describe what’s the difference between the practice now versus the practices that you are proposing?

Dr Rohan Currey: So a well-managed fishery has a number of features, and those features are that they harvest in a way that maintains a stock that is healthy and continues to produce a large volume of fish into the future, so the fisheries can operate in perpetuity. 

They minimise their impact on the environment, and they have systems in place to ensure that that’s not a one-off event that this continues. 

Our fisheries standard has codified this in a very detailed way, and it’s now applied very broadly in fisheries around the world to describe precisely what “good” looks like. We see fisheries that have made journeys to improve to become sustainable. 

And also, fisheries that were already sustainable, when they become certified, they get that recognition, and that can lead to a benefit for them in the marketplace because consumers can then be confident that the fisheries they’re buying from are actually managed sustainably.

The reason why this is so critical is that when you manage that way, not only do you have a benefit for our oceans, which of course, on World Oceans Day, we should be celebrating.

But in addition to that, there is a significant benefit for the community from the fact that you actually get a “sustainability dividend”, a bonus that comes from managing well. 

And in this case, managing well might mean setting a catch limit. It might mean using a different gear type. It might mean operating in different areas of the ocean. 

But if you use a science-based approach to manage the way that you fish, this sustainability dividend could be considerable, and our estimate for that is that could be as high as 16 million tonnes of seafood. 

So that 16 million tonnes is being foregone at present and if it was available, it could be of immense benefit to humanity.

Euronews View: How did this issue of overfishing come to be? How long is this been going on? What was the root issue caused it?

Dr Rohan Currey: It’s a very good question. The cause of overfishing is the fact that for a long time, people really didn’t understand that the ocean had limits. They perceived the ocean as so vast. 

And when humanity’s technology was only sort of relatively at an early stage of development, that was in some respects the case because we’re limited by our own capacity to go out and fish. 

So in the early days, it was thought to be boundless and limitless. What we’ve now come to realise with advancing technology with a better understanding of the oceans is that actually, humanity is capable of having a significant impact on this, and it’s exacerbated by the fact that the oceans themselves, in many places, they’re global commons.

And that means there is an active incentive for individuals to go out there and to fish, and it may have a detrimental impact on others but the benefit accrues to them and to the detriment of someone else. 

So the global commons phenomenon is particularly important when it comes to exacerbating this problem, but we’ve seen specific examples play out. Industrial wailing was one of the first great fishery collapses where people didn’t have a good handle on how many whales they could take and take sustainably. 

And as a result, we saw whale populations plummet in some cases to below 1% of what was originally there. 

Then we saw the collapse of the cod stocks of New England. And in fact, that was one of the reasons why the MSC as an organisation was established because civil society and the markets became incredibly concerned about the impact of overfishing, where you could drive a stock to collapse. 

And so we wanted to find a way to recognize people doing the right thing to complement what governments are doing in regulating it.

So that was the genesis of this. It’s a long-standing problem. It’s a problem that’s become more difficult over time, and I would say it’s a problem that’s only going to get worse with climate change as fish stocks shift and they move into different areas, and the productivity of the ocean changes as well. 

So it’s critically important that we manage and address the overfishing crisis. Otherwise, we won’t be able to continue to eat seafood into the future, and our oceans will be poorer for it as well.

Euronews View: How do the market demand, trends, or a particular type of fish growing in popularity when it comes to human consumption affect the current situation in the oceans?

Dr Rohan Currey: I would say that different market drivers operate in different parts of the world, and what you often see is that people have an affinity for particular fish species or fish stocks that they’ve often grown up with, and they’re very familiar with and as a result of that the market tends to be concentrated on certain kinds of species.

What then happens is the market will look to source that fish, and in some cases, if stocks have become depleted, they may not source it from the adjacent fisheries, which might have been historically how it came to have that cultural connection.

They’ll look to other markets to find that, and to some degree, that substitution is part of why I think the global fish trade is such a complex thing. 

Fish is one of the most widely traded commodities on the planet with some of the most complex supply chains, and a lot of that’s got to do with where fish are processed. 

But it’s also got to do with the fact that, as there have been places where it hasn’t been particularly well-managed, people have had to source from elsewhere to get the fish that they’ve originally become used to having. 

And again, this is one of the drivers for thinking about sustainable management long term. These fish stocks, they’re not just important in terms of the nutrient benefits, which is obviously something critical. 

But I would also say there is a cultural component to this where people are associated with particular kinds of seafood, and people being able to continue to source from that and to eat that seafood into the future is incredibly important.

Euronews View: How does this affect people living in landlocked countries of Europe and other continents, or those who don’t necessarily have direct access to the sea, or those not used to a seafood-based diet?

Dr Rohan Currey: Well, our oceans are incredibly important for us in many different ways. Obviously, they are a source of food, and whether we live by the coast or not, people will still rely on seafood as one of their sources of protein and nutrients in different parts of the world. 

But in addition to that, about half of the oxygen that we breathe comes from the oceans and so managing the oceans well is so important for us. 

They provide a sort of lifeblood for us, they maintain the functioning of our climate, and that critical role is directly related to how healthy they are, and that includes the life within them. 

So maintaining oceans in a healthy state is something that we all should care about and that we all benefit from, and ultimately that’s why it’s so important to make the most of things like World Oceans Day to raise awareness of what’s necessary for our oceans to continue to thrive into the future.

**Euronews View: And lastly, what could and should be done? What would be your call to action?
**

Dr Rohan Currey: I would ask that the policymakers recognise the benefits of sustainable fisheries and put in place measures to support that. 

What we’re finding at the moment around the world is that the enabling environment for sustainable fisheries management is not necessarily going in the right direction.

This is partly a function of the polarisation we see in the world around us and the geopolitical tensions that seem to be ramping up.

But for those who are making decisions about fisheries, it’s critically important to recognise the responsibility that comes with that to look after our oceans and the benefits that come to humanity from doing it. 

I’d also highlight that we’ve seen some pretty amazing actions taken by governments in recent times where there have been remarkable success stories. 

For example, the world’s largest tuna fisheries operate in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean, and recently just in December last year, they agreed to a landmark harvest strategy, which is going to regulate the way that they conduct the fishery for skipjack tuna.

That multi-million-tonne fishery which is the world’s largest for tuna, is now regulated in part to address this pressing need to make sure that the oceans remain sustainably managed in perpetuity. 

And given that things like climate change will affect fish stock distribution, that was very much at the forefront of people’s minds. 

So if possible, my call to action would be for people to recognise this as important and to take action and to know that it’s possible because some people are already doing it.

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Megabasins: solution or “insane” response to drought?

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France finds itself at a tug-of-war between opponents to megabasins and the agricultural sector.

In the west of France, the Marais Poitevin, France’s second largest wetland, is the epicentre of the conflict surrounding water reservoirs for agricultural irrigation. Opponents of these gigantic reservoirs call them “basins” or “megabasins”.

Wherever these projects see the light of day, resistance is being organised against these reservoirs, which are accused of plundering groundwater resources.

Firstly, on the legal front, environmental associations have had several replacement reservoirs declared illegal because of inadequate impact studies; secondly, on the direct action front, with the sabotage of several of these reservoirs.

The final front was mass mobilisation. On 25 March 2023, for example, a banned demonstration in Sainte-Soline brought together between 6,000 and 30,000 people, and marked a historic turning point in the fight for access to water.

Firstly because of the scale of the project, and secondly because of the images of the clashes between the police and demonstrators, which left more than 200 demonstrators injured.

A few weeks later, we met up with Mathieu, an activist with “Bassines Non Merci”, in the Deux-Sèvres region of France. It’s no coincidence that the movement has moved towards more frontal methods:

“For four years, we’ve swept up all these possible fields of action, with mobilisations, conferences, round tables and public debates,” Mathieu explains.

“We can see that, despite this, dialogue is not possible and that the first projects are starting; effectively, at this point, there is also an evolution in our form of mobilisation,” he acknowledges. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t continue to call for a reopening of dialogue and a moratorium, because that’s the only way we think we can get out of this,” he says.

Joëlle Lallemand, the President of the APIEEE (Association de Protection, d’Information et d’Études de l’Eau et de son Environnement) gives us her point of view: “There are still preserved areas [in the Marais Poitevin], but they are shrinking because the trend everywhere for years has been to destroy wet meadows and replace them with corn,” she explains.

Jean-Jacques Guillet, spokesman for “Bassines Non Merci”, adds: “Before making basins, it would be better to restore these wetlands, which serve both to store water and to clean it up. If we have to find solutions to mitigate global warming in the future, the solution is not to put groundwater in the sun, but to do everything possible to put water back into the soil: that’s where it’s at its best, protected from light and pollution,” he points out.

In practical terms, a basin is a hole several hectares in size covered with strong and impermeable tarpaulin sheets. In these, water is stored to water farmland during the summer.

The special feature of these reservoirs is that they are filled by pumping from the water table during the winter months.

Although the system has been in existence for 40 years, it was not until 2007 that the first collective projects, supported by the State, saw the light of day. There are now more than a hundred such projects, both planned and completed, in the west of France.

François Pétorin is a director of the Coop de l’eau 79. This cooperative of 220 farms has a project for sixteen replacement reservoirs, covering an area that includes the Marais Poitevin and the rivers that feed it. Only one has been completed to date.

Eventually, the largest will be the Sainte-Soline reservoir, which the demonstrators detest, and which will have a capacity of over 600,000 m³ of water – the equivalent of 250 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

“I’m a farmer, producing cereals and seeds,” explains François Pétorin. “The project was prompted by the major droughts we had in 2005, 2007 and 2003, and the prefectoral decrees [issued] very early on that prohibited us from watering in spring and summer, so yields were penalised and catastrophic, even for wheat,” he adds.

“So today, water storage is one of the solutions that will enable us to maintain agriculture in the region,” he asserts.

But what kind of agriculture? This is the crux of the conflict surrounding the replacement reserves. Opponents advocate a more environmentally-friendly form of farming, based essentially on rainwater.

Opposing them are irrigated farmers, such as François Pétorin. Irrigated farming accounts for just 7% of French farmland, but uses more than half the water consumed in the country, particularly for growing cereals such as corn.

This irrigation is now under threat from the climate crisis and repeated droughts. Hence the idea of replacing water pumping in summer with pumping in winter, when water is, in theory, more abundant.

This is an idea actively supported by the public authorities, who are providing 70% of the total cost of the Coop de l’eau project, estimated at 76 million euros. By its promoters’ own admission, water storage is above all a way of getting round the rules limiting the use of water resources during periods of drought.

An exemption denounced by hydrologist Emma Haziza, who sees it not only as a form of water privatisation, but also as a danger to the entire ecosystem.

“If you want good agriculture, you need a fairly high water table,” Haziza explains. “The level of the water table has a direct impact on the quantity of water in the first layers of soil, what we call green water, but it also directly contributes water to all the springs and rivers, and if you cut off this exchange by taking this pocket of water and completely disconnecting it from the environment, you will not only collapse the water in the river more quickly, but all the living organisms behind it,” she warns.

According to this researcher, there is a scientific consensus that the basins risk exacerbating droughts and are ill-adapted to the climate crisis.

Unreliable data?

For their part, the Coop de l’eau 79 and the French government continue to support them, basing their position on a report by the French Geological and Mining Research Bureau (BRGM).

According to the report, replacement reserves would have a “limited impact” on groundwater and river flows. A report criticised by several experts and qualified by BRGM itself at a hearing in the French Senate. “We did not simulate the consequences of global warming, nor did we say that we could necessarily draw water in winter,” said Michèle Rousseau, President of BRGM.

“This study is based on data from 2001 to 2011, data that are totally obsolete because climate change is starting to be seen from 2016-2017 in France,” explained Haziza. “From then on, we’re going to start having non-winters and periods when our water tables are no longer recharged,” she says.

“In reality,” she continues, “it’s not even a solution, it’s not even a misadaptation, it’s becoming downright insane to move towards these solutions. And yet they are being implemented everywhere,” she laments.

Despite the protests, the French government is asserting the use of replacement reserves in its plan to implement the new Common Agricultural Policy: an envelope of €45 billion between 2023 and 2027 to support French agriculture.

An ‘interest’ of the European Commission

Since 2021, anti-pooling campaigners have taken their demands further, to the European level, in the form of a petition, accusing this type of reservoir of violating several European environmental directives.

While the European Commission acknowledges certain shortcomings and says it is taking this case very seriously, it is currently referring the matter to the French courts to ensure that the reservoirs comply with Community law.

Does this augur well for the extension of the basins and the tensions they generate to the rest of Europe?

At the end of April, as they do every month, the agriculture ministers of the 27 Member States met under the aegis of the Council of the European Union. It was their first meeting since the demonstration at Sainte-Soline.

“This is not something we have discussed at this Council, it was not on the agenda, but that may of course change,” Peter Kullgren, Sweden’s Minister for Rural Affairs acknowledged about megabasins in France. Janusz Wojciechowski, European Commissioner for Agriculture, added: “We are open to discussion on this proposal, which is interesting and worthy of consideration. Potential interest in ponds from Member States and the European Commission.

The weight of agricultural lobbies

What about the European Parliament? We put the question to the chairman of the Environment Committee, Frenchman Pascal Canfin, who says he supports the basins under certain conditions.

“A mega-basin may just be a headlong rush, but if it’s linked to changes in farmers’ practices, such as switching to crops that need less water, it’s a way of securing their transition,” he says.

However, according to this MEP, this transition faces a major obstacle – the European Parliament’s powerful Agriculture Committee.

“You have opposition to all the European texts that seek to encourage a change in agricultural practices, such as the text on pesticides, the one on nature restoration or the one on industrial emissions from livestock farming,” says the MEP from the Renew group.

For decades, agricultural lobbies have been defending the interests of the agro-industry, using food sovereignty and safety as their main argument.

At European level, the lobby that has the ear of the Agriculture Committee is COPA-COGECA.

According to a document from 2018, COPA-COGECA states that water storage “is the most important means of improving water security” and calls for “increased fiscal and financial support” and “a reduction in the administrative burden” to achieve this.

Marco Contiero, agricultural policy specialist at Greenpeace, is not at all surprised by this stance.

“The farmers who are protected and whose interests are at the heart of the work of COPA-COGECA and other lobbies do not represent the majority of farmers,” he says.

“They are a very small minority of larger, sometimes truly industrial, farms that are in fact responsible for most of the pollution,” he says.

“Yet a committee that is supposed to be looking after agriculture, of course, but that is also supposed to be helping the farming sector in this transition, is stubbornly defending the status quo, and that’s a problem!

A structural problem linked to the Common Agricultural Policy

But one man is trying to change things. Benoît Biteau is an agricultural engineer, the owner of an organic farm in France and one of the leading figures in the anti-bassin movement. He is also a Member of the European Parliament and Vice-Chairman of the Agriculture Committee. In his view, the agricultural transition is also coming up against a structural problem, linked to the allocation of financial aid.

“When you look at how public aid under the Common Agricultural Policy is distributed, 80% of the budget is taken up by the 20% largest structures,” points out the MEP for the Greens/European Free Alliance.

“The mechanism is that aid is given per unit area, so the more hectares you have, the more aid you get, and it’s precisely these large areas that are the biggest users of water,” he points out, before adding: “Public aid under the CAP does not sufficiently condition the reduction of pesticides and synthetic fertilisers, which disrupt soil fertility.

“So we are continuing to support agriculture that is moving away from restoring soil fertility, which is the answer, instead of agriculture that is more frugal in terms of consumption of pesticides, synthetic fertilisers and, of course, water,” he stresses.

“It’s not a systemic response” says the Executive Director of the European Environment Agency

According to the European Environment Agency, groundwater pollution in Europe is mainly caused by pesticides and chemical fertilisers. Agricultural irrigation is the biggest threat to groundwater levels.

As a result, almost a third of groundwater tables are struggling to meet the quantitative and qualitative requirements set out in European regulations. The Agency is therefore calling for the precautionary principle to be respected in strategies for adapting to the climate crisis. A principle that substitution reserves would not necessarily respect.

“This is not a systemic response: it’s a band-aid and it’s a band-aid that, on top of that, could disrupt and worsen the general state of the local environment and our ability to really adapt to the circumstances of climate change,” says Hans Bruyninckx, Executive Director of the European Environment Agency (2013-2023).

“Secondly, the basins are not economically feasible without substantial public subsidies, so it is questionable whether this is an economically realistic way of supporting agriculture,” he asks. “More than the precautionary principle, I don’t think this is the systemic response the farming system needs,” he says.

Yet a systemic change would be in the interests of many farmers. Between 2005 and 2020, 5,300,000 farms disappeared in Europe – that’s almost 1,000 farms a day. 87% of these were small farms of less than 5 hectares.

Faced with a climate crisis that our societies are making worse by the day, ponds have become the symbol of an agricultural model that illustrates the European Union’s difficulty in reconciling its environmental objectives with its economic priorities.

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EU’s green transition is ‘a marathon’, says Environment Commissioner

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In this latest episode of the Global Conversation, we speak to Virginijus Sinkevičius about Europe’s waning enthusiasm for greener policies.

Green Week is the European Union’s annual opportunity to take stock of its climate policy. 

This year, the week of meetings and debates is taking place in an atmosphere where environmental objectives are being called into question. 

To discuss these challenges, Euronews met with the European Commissioner for Environment, Oceans and Fisheries, Virginijus Sinkevičius.

Grégoire Lory, Euronews: The environmental priority seems to have taken a backseat when we hear the French president or the Belgian prime minister talking about a regulatory pause.

Virginijus Sinkevičius, European Commissioner for the Environment: “I think the French president, if you listen for the whole speech, that was a very good, good speech, and that was not really meant to, you know, go against any of the current proposals that are already put forward. 

“It’s more of keeping a balanced approach and ensuring that we have the competitiveness of our businesses as the priority. And I can only reconfirm that was the Commission’s position from the very beginning, that the Green Deal is not possible without having everyone on board. But we should not forget that there is not going to be a peace treaty as regards [to] climate change or biodiversity loss. And these crises and their consequences are already putting a huge toll on our life as regards [to] food insecurity, as regards [to] floods or droughts, which not only costs a living for European citizens but also human lives. And of course, we need to prevent such disasters of scaling up across Europe.”

Grégoire Lory, Euronews: Isn’t this pause what people want to hear because they don’t see in their daily lives the effects of these green policies and they have other concerns?

Virginijus Sinkevičius, European Commissioner for the Environment: “It’s always easier to spot the immediate crisis. Such as a war which now [is] ongoing in Ukraine for more than a year. You have a clear image. With, for example, the degradation of our soil, it’s much more difficult to see it. Most likely the first ones to see, to understand are our farmers that have to deal with soil every day and who depend on soil fertility directly. But still, we as politicians, if we are responsible, we have to take future-oriented decisions. We cannot be jumping only on those topics that society is at this moment voicing up.

“If you return to 2019, across all political parties, everyone was in the race for the Green Deal. Who is even more ambitious? Today, this voice is diminishing. But the climate crisis or biodiversity loss or pollution pressures, they didn’t go anywhere. Such policies and a change that we are now doing as regards our economy, as regards our energy transition, transport and so on, this is a marathon, despite the pressures from outside.”

Grégoire Lory, Euronews: Are the Member states still involved? And what about the Parliament? Because the centre-right is asking for a moratorium (on several important texts of the Green Deal). Is there still a majority in favour of environmental policy?

Virginijus Sinkevičius, European Commissioner for the Environment: “So of course, first of all, member states, of course, are fully involved. Same I see with the parliament. Yes, you always have voices, that’s the beauty of democracy and the Parliament. But overall, you have to look if the work is going forward, then I can see that the work is going forward. I always wanted to go faster ahead. So we need to ensure that we are ready, that we are fit for tomorrow that looks gloomy. 

“And first of all, it looks gloomy to those economic actors that are directly dependent on ecosystems: our farmers, our fishers, our foresters. 50% of the world’s GDP is actually connected to ecosystems. I know it’s something that we take for granted, but at some point, if we lose it, there is not going to be a technology that can successfully replace it.”

Grégoire Lory, Euronews: Is the ongoing war in Ukraine putting pressure on the ambition and investment in favour of green policies?

Virginijus Sinkevičius, European Commissioner for the Environment: “I would say you have to probably split it into two parts. On the one hand, it had a very positive effect on our energy policies. So all our goals on renewable energy, our work as regards the package of REpowerEU, of developing renewable projects as being adopted with astonishing speed. And it really showed that this uncertainty and increased energy prices, they pushed us to look for alternatives that would allow us not [to] be dependent on uncertain, undemocratic regimes. 

“Now, when it comes to biodiversity policies, I can only reassure you that we don’t want foresters out of the forest or we don’t want fishers off the sea or farmers not working the land. On the contrary, we want them to do it for many, many years to come in a way that it’s rewarding for them, that it’s profitable in a way that is not damaging to the ecosystem. So that we ensure long-term sustainability.”

Grégoire Lory, Euronews: Will all the text be concluded before the end of the mandate?

Virginijus Sinkevičius, European Commissioner for the Environment: “If you look at the files that I’m in charge of: [the] circular economy, environmental files, I am optimistic that we are moving ahead swiftly and I hope that we can successfully conclude. As I said, we need it. We need [it] to maintain our leadership position globally. We need it because we were the leading force behind the global agreements and we need it to secure a deliverable future for the generations to come.

Grégoire Lory, Euronews: In this difficult context, what are the achievements that are set in stone and that will affect the citizens?

Virginijus Sinkevičius, European Commissioner for the Environment: “I think, first of all, you know, we’ve done a tremendous work as regards [to] the climate package and “Fit for 55” package, which is almost done. And that’s a great achievement. We have put forward already all the policies that are key policies as regards the circular economy and really moving from the linear model to a more circular model. And I’m very happy that co-legislators are very supportive. 

“And if you look at the product policy after this mandate, it will be unrecognisable, on all the changes that we have put forward. And I’m very proud of it. I’m happy that we managed early on to conclude our file on the batteries. We see that battery production by 2030 will increase 14-fold. So there are a number of great achievements. But as [I] said, when we talk about the Green Deal, it’s a complex horizontal change. It’s not one single initiative that can be called a Green Deal. And we still have a lot of work ahead of us.”

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Green Week Debate 2023: Can Europe lead the way on food security?

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As part of Euronews’ Green Week, our expert panel will explore how Europe can future-proof its food security in the face of climate change and rising global hunger.

More and more people are going hungry globally. The World Food Programme (WFP) estimates that 345 million people are now facing acute food insecurity, more than double the number affected in 2019.

The combined shocks of the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine and spiralling food, fuel and fertiliser costs have ignited a cost of living crisis across Europe and the world.

The climate emergency is playing a role too. According to the UN, climate change is now one of the “leading causes” of global hunger, with the food crisis likely to “spiral out of control” if the world fails to take immediate action.

While the situation is most pressing in East African countries such as Somalia and Ethiopia, the impacts of climate change are being felt across the globe. In Europe, food security is being threatened by extreme weather, with the continent now in drought since 2018, according to a recent study from the Graz University of Technology in Austria.

The situation is being made more complex by the climate impacts of the food system itself, creating a feedback loop where the emissions from global food production are making climate change worse.

As the climate emergency escalates, will technology and innovation make food systems more resilient? And if innovation is the answer, who is going to pay for it?

As Europe looks to the future, what will the changing climate mean for our diets, and will consumer food choices help to steer us in a more sustainable direction?

As part of Euronews’ Green Week, we’ll be putting these key questions and more to a panel of experts during our live debate on Thursday 8th June at 3.00pm (CEST)

Meet our panel:

Edward Davey, Director of Partnerships, Food & Land Use Coalition (FOLU) & Co-Director, World Resources Institute UK

Edward Davey is the Director of Partnerships at the Food and Land Use Coalition. He is responsible for ensuring that FOLU drives real and lasting impact in international processes and institutions on the food systems agenda. Edward is also Co-Director of WRI UK. He is the author of ‘Given Half A Chance: Ten Ways to Save the World,’ published in 2019.

Dr. Lee Ann Jackson, Head, Agro-Food Trade and Markets Division, Directorate for Trade & Agriculture, OECD

Dr. Lee Ann Jackson is the Head of the Agro-Food Trade and Markets Division in the Trade and Agriculture Directorate (TAD) at the OECD. Dr Jackson manages a team that develops evidence-based advice for governments with the aim of helping them improve the domestic and international performance of their policies for agro-food trade and markets.

She joined the OECD in 2020 after 16 years at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) where she served as the Secretary to the WTO’s Committee on Agriculture in the Agriculture and Commodities Division.

Prof. Mladen Radisic, CEO, Foodscale Hub & Communication Manager, CrackSense

Prof. Mladen Radišić is CEO at Foodscale Hub, an Impact Venture Studio working to accelerate the shift towards tech-enabled innovations in the agrifood sector. He is also a university professor specialising in Business and Finance.

He has previous experience in running large-scale projects and has organised international EU-funded business accelerator programs. These projects and programs provided €15 million to more than 300 European SMEs and startups, covering sectors such as agrifood, ICT, manufacturing, logistics, health, finance, energy, and environment.

Marloes Martens, Product Manager, Human Nutrition & Health, Ynsect

Marloes Martens is Product Manager of Human Nutrition & Health at Ÿnsect. As part of her role, she also works with R&D on the development of new products, as well as with sales – she is the link between the technical departments and the sales people.

As part of her Master’s degree in Health-Food Innovation Management at the University of Maastricht, she founded Oatelli, a project aimed at improving fibre consumption in the Netherlands.

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Is food production causing climate change?

Food production is one of the leading causes of climate change, accounting for a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the World Resources Institute.

Animal products currently make-up two-thirds of all agricultural emissions and use more than three-quarters of agricultural land. Food production is water intensive too, with an average of 70 per cent of the world’s freshwater used during agricultural production.

To make matters worse, roughly a third of all food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted, with the EU wasting approximately 131 kg per person in 2020 alone.

How is the EU planning to improve food security?

The EU cites the climate, a lack of resources and population growth among the factors behind its Food 2030 policy, which seeks to make European food systems more sustainable, while ensuring everyone has enough affordable and nutritious food.

With research and innovation at its heart, the policy covers everything from land and water-based production, to food processing, retail and distribution, packaging, waste and recycling, and consumption. It aligns with the EU’s flagship Green Deal vision.

Research has shown that EU citizens are hungry for change too. A 2022 WWF report found that 74 per cent of respondents believed that Europeans should eat food that is better for the environment, while 66 per cent agree that eating sustainable food is key to tackling climate change and biodiversity loss.

In order to make food systems more resilient though, the EU must combine technological innovation and regenerative farming, while increasing the diversity of its cereal crops to ensure resilient food for the future.

How can innovation make food systems more resilient?

Building innovation into the current food system is a complex undertaking, especially as the climate emergency evolves.

In the long term, the EU is looking to reduce its dependence on imports such as fertilisers and plant-based proteins for animal feed, while at the same time funding projects which provide solutions to climate issues.

One of the latest projects to receive EU funding is the Greek based initiative CrackSense. The project aims to address the problem of fruit cracking, which can happen due to an erratic water supply and leads to fruit drop and yield loss. By developing and upscaling sensing technologies, the project is able to provide real-time data on fruit conditions, which could be adapted for other crops too.

As the climate emergency escalates, can Europe ensure food security and future-proof its farms? Join us on Thursday 8th June at 3.00pm (CEST) to debate one of the most important issues of our time.

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