WHAT THE CHIEFS SAY

Food Prices: Tighten Your Belt or Produce

Spring 2011

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Friedhelm Schmider,
Director General,
European Crop Protection Association

All too common in the debate about food security and food prices is the highly patronizing line that Europeans don’t have to worry about food security because they eat too much.  Paying more for food is a good thing because Europeans will have to lower their intake and become more like the somewhat sleeker policy-makers.  Let them eat organic is their message (and pay more).  Unfortunately this thinking has gained some traction within certain quarters of the European Commission.

 

I think this argument can best be regarded as a category error because bad dietary choices have nothing to do with European agricultural reality which is about declining productivity and increasing dependence on imports.  The most recent OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2010-2019 refers to EU agricultural productivity as “stagnant”.  It reports very positive projections for food production growth over the next ten years in all major agricultural regions at levels ranging from 15 to 40%, based mainly on yield increases. In contrast, the report projects net agricultural output in the EU-27 will grow less than 4% due to productivity-suppressing policies.   Europe, already the world’s biggest food importer, will therefore, by edict, become even more dependent on  imports.  Meanwhile, global food demand is growing (70 % more food will be needed by 2050, FAO) and food prices trend upwards. 

 

There’s more at stake. A recent study by the Humboldt Institute demonstrates that reducing productivity by regulation and subsidy in Europe has led to the rapid expansion of land dedicated to European food needs elsewhere. The OECD-FAO report calls this a “land grab”: an area of farmland the size of Germany is serving Europe in the developing world.  This land alienation diverts local food supplies and risks not only high prices and disruptions in supply for Europe but further destruction of rainforests and other natural habitats abroad as farmland expands to meet food needs.  Europeans care about these issues as well. Paul Krugman, Nobel prize winning economist, addressed a high level audience of agriculture and food officials here in Brussels 2 years ago, indicating that conditions are in place for a European food price crisis because of our unwarranted dependence on imports.  The EU, therefore, should be looking to its own policies, regulations and incentives to protect Europeans from high food prices. The key is to promote productive, efficient, sustainable agriculture here in Europe and reduce import-dependency for crops that can be grown here. This is the true meaning of food security.

 

Europe is currently heading in the opposite direction, promoting high priced, unproductive agriculture by incentive and suppressing the contribution of crop science through prohibition and overly precautionary regulation.  We must strike a healthy balance among our competing priorities.  The answer is sustainable use of the innovative technology available and greater investment in productivity research, innovation and farmer education.

 

This will help keep healthy diets affordable, which brings us back to the “fat European” slur.  It is widely acknowledged that the high-fat, high-carbo diet that leads to obesity is already the main diet of the poor because it is cheaper than one based on fresh fruits and vegetables.  This will only get worse in the high cost regime envisioned by certain policy makers.

 

Let’s avoid red herring in the debate about food security.  They’re bad for the diet.
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