The Joint Research Centre (JRC) has presented to the European Commission its first science-based monitoring framework for a healthy and environmentally friendly food system. For this, 350 indicators were screened from which a selection was made that will be worked with using a monitoring dashboard. This will support EU food policy.
Interestingly, biodiversity plays a major role in this. The global food system is responsible for biodiversity loss (Benton et al., 2021) states the report. It also acknowledges that food security has become scarcer as a result. Biodiversity loss is a threat to food security and livelihoods. The EU Biodiversity Strategy 2030 therefore aims to restore biodiversity in Europe by 2030.
Here, JRC refers to 'genetic biodiversity' of food production systems. According to JRC, the definition of biodiversity includes not only the variability of species and ecosystems, but also diversity within species, or genetic biodiversity. Or GMO products including CRISPR-CAS which apparently also comes under biodiversity. There is no reference to a scientific paper here. And how this relates to a healthy (biodiverse) food chain is also not named.
On the website of Wageningen University & Research (WUR) states that biodiversity is the interplay of thousands of species of plants, animals and ecosystems that underpin a healthy living environment, sustainable food production and climate change mitigation. Life on earth is not possible without biodiversity.
'Genetic biodiversity' is apparently supposed to solve EU biodiversity loss. So natural food will be replaced by GMO food?
The negative impacts of climate change, soil degradation and biodiversity loss are currently the biggest challenges to food availability in Europe (Meredith et al., 2019). Moreover, according to JRC, the ongoing war in Ukraine has implications for food security in the EU. While food supply remains stable, high input costs and import dependency may impact food access and affordability in the region (Rabbi et al., 2023). In short, local food supply is and will remain important. Also for natural biodiversity.
The model of the EU food system below provides the basis for setting the indicators for the EU food policy plan.
According to previous research (Egenolf and Bringezu, 2019; Giuntoli et al., 2020), a small number of indicators is suitable for providing general overviews and explanations, while the use of a large number of indicators is valuable for illustrating and highlighting details. Therefore, 236 indicators have been identified. These indicators are suitable for inclusion in the EU food model. The indicators are policy-relevant and thematically informative while providing balanced coverage of all domains of the sustainability model.
JRC identified 236 indicators. Of these indicators, 44 were classified as leading, 31 as secondary, 25 as temporary and 136 indicators as pool.
With the proposed framework, the EU aims to monitor the sustainability of the EU food system (European green deal / farm to fork). The conceptual model allows for a holistic and cross-sectoral approach addressing environmental, economic and social dimensions of sustainability. Fine words for a non-natural food policy.
Source: https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC137971
