Using Style and Formatting in UECBV Notes

Brussels, 7th August 2017 UECBV Ref. 11674

THE FUTURE OF FOOD IN THE EU – Symposium on 27th JUNE 2017 – Report

Permanent Representation of the Netherlands to the EU, Avenue de Cortenbergh 4-10, 1040 Brussels, Belgium

The Symposium was organised by the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission and the Trio-Presidency of Malta, Slovakia and the Netherlands. During the meeting a presentation was made on the forward-looking report drafted by JRC on "Delivering on EU Food Safety and Nutrition in 2050 – Future challenges and policy preparedness".

Contents Executive summary...... 2 THE GOALS OF THE REPORT...... 2 PRESENTATION OF THE JRC FORESIGHT STUDY "DELIVERING ON EU FOOD SAFETY AND NUTRITION IN 2050 – FUTURE CHALLENGES AND POLICY PREPAREDNESS", BY FRANZ ULBERTH, JOINT RESEARCH CENTRE ...... 4 Scenario 1 // Global food // A growing part of the population in the emerging economies adapted “Western” eating habits, with increasing demand for animal proteins and processed convenience food 5 Scenario 2 // Regional food // Peer to peer communities where people are able to produce something in the backyards 6 Scenario 3 // Partnership food // The close trade ties and the removal of non-tariff barriers resulted also in harmonised food and nutrition policies and legislation, strongly influenced by the US due to its comparatively favourable position in terms of economic growth, technology development and geopolitical influence. 6 Scenario 4 // Pharma food // The rise of Pharma food, the possibility to medicalize food, in that case people are supposed to have adopted a very healthy lifestyle, all the health infrastructures in EU are already dealing with food. 7 Tassos HANIOTIS – DG AGRI - Directorate E Economic analysis, perspectives and evaluations – communication...... 7 Felice Assenza – Director-General for International Affairs of the Italian Ministry of Agriculture...... 9 1 Frans W.A. Bronm - Scientific Council for Government Policy NL...... 9 Panel discussion on The Future of Food:...... 10 Ladislav Miko, Deputy DG for Food Safety of the European Commission 10 Beate Kettlitz - Director, Food Policy, Science and R&I of Food Drink Europe 10 Wojchiec Kalamarz, Head of Unit for Health Determinants & Inequality of the European Commission, DG SANTE 11 Jock Martin, Head of Integrated Environmental Assessments at the European Environment Agency 11 Camille Perrin, Senior Food Policy Officer, European Consumer Organisation BEUC 11 Beat Späth, Director for Agricultural Biotech of EuropaBio 12 Closing remarks by the European Commission 12 Closing by Neil Kerr, Dty. Permanent Representative of the Maltese Presidency of the Council of the EU 12

Executive summary The JRC report identified four scenarios on how and by whom food is possibly produced in the future, the challenges that each of the scenarios will face us with and policy options to address these challenges. The JRC applied a comprehensive, multi-disciplinary foresight approach, and looked at food from the perspective of safety, nutrition, health, environment, sustainable and innovative production methods and security.

Résumé analytique Dans son rapport, le Centre commun de recherche de la Commission européenne identifie les quatre scénarios de la production alimentaire du futur (Comment produire? Qui produira?), les défis auxquels chaque scénario sera confronté et les options politiques permettant de relever lesdits défis. Le Centre a appliqué une approche prospective, multidisciplinaire et globale. Il a étudié les denrées alimentaires sous plusieurs angles : sécurité alimentaire, nutrition, santé, environnement, méthodes de production durables et innovantes, sécurité d’approvisionnement.

2 THE GOALS OF THE REPORT The goal of the report is to contribute to the European debate on the future of food, to share views and food policies of EU countries, to provide a platform for a multi-disciplinary discussion on the future of food in the EU.

With discussions with stakeholders representing a wide range of perspectives related to the entire food chain, the event aimed to stimulate forward thinking and subsequently provide input to policy development and implementation that reflects Europe's leading role in food safety and nutrition security.

The rich discussions at the Symposium converged on the following points:

• There is a need for an all-encompassing debate on more comprehensive policy options on the different aspects of food in Europe.

• Foresight, and in particular scenario building, provides a valuable input to discussions about future policies.

• A holistic approach is needed, considering the different elements, perspectives of the food system and their interlinkages.

• The current debate on the future of the EU provides an opportunity to include considerations on the future of food in the EU.

Opening by Robert de Groot, NL Permanent Representative to the EU

Our role is to provide the market with healthy, nutritious and sustainable food. Priorities are for us: better food safety, to reduce waste, to improve animal welfare, to reduce pesticide and to develop new breeding techniques. 3 Alexander Micovin, SK Deputy Permanent Representative to the EU

Food efficiency is not the only important variable to take into account: time is changing and European players shall react accordingly.

Welcome by Charlina Vitcheva, Deputy Director General of the Joint Research Centre (JRC) Redesigning the CAP will provide a higher level of food safety and security. Eurobarometer figured out in a recent study that food safety is the most important aspect when people buy food. JRC is a DG of the EC, it is a professional decision-maker taking into account science, truth and valuable facts, it is supposed to support the decisional process concerning climate change, resource depletion, food safety.

PRESENTATION OF THE JRC FORESIGHT STUDY "DELIVERING ON EU FOOD SAFETY AND NUTRITION IN 2050 – FUTURE CHALLENGES AND POLICY PREPAREDNESS", BY FRANZ ULBERTH, JOINT RESEARCH CENTRE (JRC) JRC is now particularly dealing with food frauds and food quality.

DG Sante committed already 4 years ago to a study designed to develop a scenario on how our future should look like.

Is our food safety or food regulation disturbing the event of the future? Does the EU society have technology and knowledge as well as legal basis to deal with the future difficulties?

That is why the EC likes to deal with scenarios building. This approach is not a magic crystal ball, you can imagine what will happen and it helps to be ready to solve as soon as possible bad situations, it remains a creative tool, it takes into account that there could be a lot of different futures. The scenario has always to deal with drivers, drivers of change.

Climate and Technology are the main issues of the study. 4 In each scenario you have to identify individual sub-scenarios and then try to pursuit each individual goal.

The scenarios were constructed based on different developments of specific drivers that can significantly impact and bring changes to the food system. These drivers are global trade, EU economic growth, agro- food chain structure, technology uptake, social cohesion, food values, climate change, depletion of natural resources and world population growth. The resulting scenarios describe four alternative, distinct directions of development:

Global food: globalised food chains and a further concentrated global food industry with a pre-dominance of highly processed convenience food. Regional food: trade fragmentation, the EU moves towards a circular, self-sufficient economy with citizens actively involved in food production. Pharma food: the striving EU food industry is the global market leader in functional and pharmaceutical food, catering to the demand of very health-aware citizens. Partnership food: a non-competitive EU teams up with an economically stronger partner while facing brain-drain and loss of technological know-how with predominance of highly processed convenience food.

For each scenario, a number of food safety and nutrition challenges were identified and prioritised based on their importance and likelihood to occur. On this basis, scenario-specific policy options were developed to inform policy-makers on how these challenges may be addressed to ensure resilience of the future EU food safety and nutrition regulatory framework.

Scenario 1 // Global food // A growing part of the population in the emerging economies adapted “Western” eating habits, with increasing demand for animal proteins and processed convenience food

The 'Global food' scenario was perceived as reflecting a business as usual perspective with many of the described trends already being visible, such as obesity and increasing antimicrobial resistance. 5 Affordability of food is thought to play a major role in the context of healthy diets.

While initiatives to prevent diet-related chronic diseases have been started in the EU and are being monitored, the question remains if this will be sufficient to effect considerable change as we move towards 2050, or if measures in addition to, for example, reformulation of food, need to be taken. Reformulation is a challenge for the food industry but can also be an opportunity to move to more innovative products. The food industry already engages in research initiatives to foster healthier lifestyles, including healthier diets.

Scenario 2 // Regional food // Peer-to-peer communities where people are able to produce something in the backyards

The implications of an ageing population for food consumption and population density in rural areas could be further explored. In this scenario, maybe lower levels of food safety will need to be accepted, as individual producers and e.g. street food will gain more importance. However, liability rules will need to be in place to cover any future 'Food Uber', and the food industry will strive to avoid food safety scandals to protect their reputation. In terms of nutrition, learning the lessons from the tobacco case, a societal debate would be needed whether banning certain foods should be considered or not. While a further integration of food-related policies is considered necessary, upcoming challenges can be tackled with the current distribution of responsibilities in the Commission (and Member States).

How to deal with the peer-to-peer community, the redistribution of fresh food would be a great problem, how to deal with the nutritional aspects of industrial food?

Scenario 3 // Partnership food

The close trade ties and the removal of non-tariff barriers resulted also in harmonised food and nutrition policies and legislation, strongly influenced by the US due to its comparatively favourable position in terms of economic growth, technology development and geopolitical influence.

6 The loss of technological know-how, as described in the scenario 'Partnership food', is thought to happen already today for agro-biotechnology. However, some expect that consumers will never become as indifferent to the food they eat as described in the scenario.

Scenario 4 // Pharma food // The rise of Pharma food, the possibility to medicalise food

In that case people are supposed to have adopted a very healthy lifestyle, all the health infrastructures in EU are already dealing with food.

- How to regulate and control the pharma-food situation?

The infrastructure that is in place is well-developed. What we need to do is to invest more on the system the regulates nutrition, it is not well developed, we have to invest more in education in order to avoid bad health status, we need an holistic view of the food policies, not the segregation of the agricultural aspects, it is a very complex area where many players should be involved.

A lot of emphasis is placed on disease prevention via personalised diets and foods. While broad consumer acceptance and usefulness of such food is questioned, some people already today pursue this kind of nutrition and the regulator needs to be ready if this trend should increase. In addition, the future context might change should, for example, health care systems come under increasing pressure. Possible risks of new food technologies should be considered and discussed early on in the development process to avoid drawbacks later on.

Tassos HANIOTIS – DG AGRI – Directorate E “Economic analysis, perspectives and evaluations – communication”

After a very long CAP debate, we are now to a summarisation and ready to carry on an impact assessment.

7 In terms of the ongoing debate, there are several achievements. The first one is in terms of competitiveness, standards and the improvement of the food standards. The EU is within the most important worldwide importers but it is also the largest exporter in terms of added value products. Even volatility has considerably reduced thanks to EC robust actions. Satisfying achievements have been reached in a better use of fertilisers. The EU still has to work on safety and the simplicity of the CAP. Furthermore, the taxation system within the EU shall still change; there are still too many different situations.

Mr Haniotis identified tensions and possible trade-offs between economic interests and environmental aspects, and between jobs and growth in times of increasing automation of food production processes. The issue of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), which is becoming more urgent, is one example where several policy areas need to work together to find a solution. In general, the choice of political instruments needs to be discussed in the context of the future CAP and any future food policy, e.g. will regulations, incentives, or subsidies coupled with certain requirements best serve the objectives?

DG Agri does not support the domestic approach, it is better to push on market access.

Climate change is a big driver for the whole economy; furthermore, big data collecting will be supported by the EC (insurance companies ask us how to solve the problem of knowledge).

Every year DG Agri wants at least 3 scenarios in order to understand what to do.

Presentation of perspectives on Food Policies of Sweden, Ms. Mathilda Åberg, DHoU, Ministry for Enterprise and Innovation

The National Food Strategy in Sweden was voted in the Parliament and it got a huge majority only last week. Why do we need a national food strategy? There was a loss of market share.

Ms. Åberg presented the Swedish method consisting in three strategic areas for increasing the total food production:

- Rules and regulations

8 How regulation should be done?

Simplification, animal welfare standards, for the operators if would be interesting to find rules. Controls could be bettered, they could become more technical, and it is a good way to create good conditions.

- Consumers and markets

Organic regulation, public procurement

- Knowledge and innovation

The agreed vision aspires towards a competitive food chain where the total food production increases, while reducing vulnerability of the food chain and sustainably increasing self-sufficiency.

Felice Assenza – Director-General for International Affairs of the Italian Ministry of Agriculture 9 billion people in 2050 are foreseen. Food must be available in a sufficient way, we should produce more. The scarcity of the natural resources shall comply with food sustainability and food traceability, circular economy should be able to beat food loses. Food waste in Italy is for us a priority. In Italy every year 6 millions of tons of food are wasted; therefore we need an Improvement of the agricultural sector management.

Agriculture and Horeca are in the same value chain and restaurants should work on waste reduction.

We solved partially the problem of food waste by support of the donation of non-sold products. Society needs higher standards under a very vast point of view.

The Milan Charter -an initiative stemming from the Expo 2015- endorses this need. Italy already took action to move towards a more sustainable food chain. Most notable are co-operations with industry on food reformulation and advertisement to reduce the obesity burden of children, plus initiatives to reduce food waste.

9 Frans W.A. Bronm – Scientific Council for Government Policy NL Three global challenges are the council priorities: ecology, sustainability, health/robustness.

We should be aware that in the market there are a lot of players between farmers and supermarkets.

Therefore, it will always be useful to be aware of the market structure in order not to lose the goal to improve the resilience of the system.

Food is not only nutrition, it is an identity; nevertheless alteration of the food system is needed to improve sustainable and health conditions.

The cabinet would like to introduce health measures to improve the CAP regulation. In the NL cooperation within ministries is a priority. Market seems fragmented but there are a lot of people trying to put the stakeholders in touch and to make all the system more efficient.

Report is in the website->look

PANEL DISCUSSION ON THE FUTURE OF FOOD:

Ladislav Miko – Deputy DG for Food Safety of the European Commission

What do we have to prevent? In many European Countries there are already policies that are dangerous. For example protectionism, it is a very difficult discussion.

Legal barriers are dangerous. If we look at the sustainability/environment/climate change, we need a more serious approach.

In case of a growing individual initiative, named peer-to-peer scenario, we must be aware that the actual models we use will not fit them and that a higher level of individual responsibility will probably be necessary.

10 There is a very high capacity of the system to assess the problems, the actual legislation allows us to assess the limits, and we know the limits of the legislation.

We cannot solve a problem perfectly and create 20 other problems that did not exist before.

Beate Kettlitz – Director, Food Policy, Science and R&I of Food Drink Europe

We do not need further legislation but a better integration of the existing one and a safeguard of the reputation. Concerning food waste, a joint force within agriculture, environment, agriculture should be assessed together.

Different dietary habits might be needed in the different EU Member States; we should not say that there is only a specific diet.

Wojchiec Kalamarz – Head of Unit for Health Determinants & Inequality of the European Commission, DG SANTE

We are preparing a project for monitoring the implementation of the rules at supermarket level, it will be carried out for two years, so we need a discussion on the harmonisation of the rules.

Food is a pleasure but maybe we should limit something. What we will do in 20 years? We will probably have the same approach with food as we have today with tobacco.

Jock Martin – Head of Integrated Environmental Assessments at the European Environment Agency

Hot topics are circularity and how we use resources, chemicals. We should foresee that the EU population is getting older and older. It would be interesting to understand how the different generations think about food; actually we do not have that data. In Germany many cities are empty, in Italy there are many marginal regions. Energy efficiency is fundamental in order to produce less GHG.

Circular economy is for us a priority.

11 In the peer-to-peer community, the perception is of a relative risk overall for peer-to-peer energy, mobility could be risky; street-food on the other side becomes something relative interesting. In that case actual policy could be unclear.

Camille Perrin – Senior Food Policy Officer, European Consumer Organisation BEUC

Concerning AMR, we should do more; the trend of pharma food is growing.

Many national health agencies are saying that we do not need food supplements. People are looking for more natural and traditional food.

With free-trade agreements (FTAs), EU standards could drop off.

Beat Späth – Director for Agricultural Biotech of EuropaBio

Use of technology and big data is the challenge to improve performances. A societal debate should be enhanced concerning international trade.

Closing remarks by the European Commission

Waste is for sure a question to be answered in the future discussion. Education and information are really important.

Closing by Neil Kerr, Dty – Permanent Representative of the Maltese Presidency of the Council of the EU

The Maltese Presidency priorities are: national resource depletion/protection, environment, direct impact, obesity in children and animal health. 12