EU Elections: the false choice between farming as a business and long-term food security

The current debate between agriculture and nature restoration

With the upcoming European elections, agriculture is high on the agenda as a main talking point and as a version of the general climate and biodiversity debate.

Farmers and those aspiring to represent them in this election argue that the EU is too hard on the sector, claiming that the European regulatory burden on farmers should be lightened [1]. Especially given that farmers are already in a very tough place on many levels: income, regulatory pressure for sustainability, extreme weather events, demand imposing low prices on produce…?

On the other side of the debate, proponents of the intensification of climate mitigation laws argue that without such regulations, the future of agriculture (and other sectors) is pretty grim. With 69% biodiversity loss [2] and the intensification of extreme weather events (heavy rainfall, droughts) [4], if we don’t promote nature restoration in farmland, we are setting ourselves up for a very rough few decades (probably centuries) by worsening the climate problem, while simultaneously removing nature’s biological and geological firewalls.?

Debates around climate policy generally oppose the present with the future, as any climate policy requires a present cost for a future benefit. Most climate policy therefore implies de facto some level of trading a current behaviour, process or system, for a new (or old) one. It’s painful in the present, but what alternative is there? The IPCC has laid out very clearly what business-as-usual looks like, and it doesn’t look good. We have to admit though, while we all share a common future, some are paying higher costs than others in the present.

The clash between farmer protests and recent EU policies

Since the protests of farmers across Europe that started in the beginning of the year, this usual opposition between present and future has crystallised around agriculture vs. nature restoration. While several European regulations have already been structuring the sector around sustainability goals for several years, the recent EU Nature Restoration regulation proposal is a good example of the struggle to move forward in either direction, as this regulation failed to be adopted by the Council on March 25 [4] - despite previously gathering support from the Parliament and a majority of Member States. This is mainly due to the nature restoration measures being recently seen by several Member States, in the wake of farmer protests, as overlooking farmers’ needs, and as being detrimental to food security in Europe.

Once again, climate politics are framing a climate issue as a dichotomy, asking: should we restore nature or protect farmers? This dichotomy mischaracterises the reality of agriculture and biodiversity protection which can actually be complementary under some circumstances [5] (more often than not).?

Nature restoration and farmer well-being aren’t diametrical opposites, but thinking that they are is rooted in a hard reconciliation between these two societal problems at the regulatory level. As with all political matters, the situation is not black and white, and while nature restoration in principle can benefit farmers, any law for nature restoration is not just going to automatically achieve that outcome. Some pathways might even be detrimental, and this could be why European law on nature restoration is facing such backlash.?

Can Nature restoration policies be counter-productive?

The EU Nature Restoration law’s purpose is to address the challenges of the century which are putting the whole continent’s safety on the line, in terms for example of food security over the next years and decades. Firstly, this regulation stems from a recognition of our current climate trajectory, pointed straight at a global warming of 2.7°C [6], which would be catastrophic but is likely to happen at this stage. Secondly, it stems from a need for European biodiversity law to gain substance due to shortcomings of previous legislations - which are pointed out through the Commission’s regulation proposal itself [7].?

The issue with that law, however, is what it doesn’t lay out. Namely, how Nature restoration will be realistically funded without making farmers the bearers of the strategy’s cost. Farmers therefore hold the legitimate fear that their already complicated financial situation might get worse.?

In an open letter [8] in response to the EU Nature Restoration law, the leading biodiversity experts behind Restor, Crowther Lab and other major research and nature restoration institutions expressed their concerns about the law. Worried that the law would burden farmers even more, they called instead for an alternative solution for nature restoration: regenerative agriculture.

Regenerative agriculture to help both farmers and nature

Regenerative agriculture’s definition isn’t exactly widely agreed upon [9], but common elements are recurring in most academic definitions. It can be defined as a set of specific agricultural practices implemented for the purpose of soil and ecosystem health restoration. Recognising the depletion of natural capital (climate safety, biodiversity and ecosystem services, soil health and nutrients)?by conventional agriculture, proponents of this solution argue that there is a way to regenerate and restore this capital.?

Not only that, they argue that it’s profitable, even more so than conventional agriculture. Despite suffering from a reputation of low profitability, evidence from the literature presents regenerative agriculture as a highly profitable journey, with profits 78% [10] or sometimes up to 120% [11] higher than conventional agriculture. Such a solution would therefore allow for dealing both with immediate environmental threats (biodiversity loss and climate change) while protecting farmers from income loss, even increasing their revenues. So what’s the catch?

Lack of institutional support can make the transition in practices a complicated endeavour. For example, the EU Nature Restoration law proposal might be a serious problem for the profitability of regenerative agriculture. While a significant proportion of these potential profits relies on decreased input costs, they are partly linked to carbon farming (mainly by storing carbon in the soil through soil health restoration). The problem is that selling carbon credits requires that these credits follow the additionality principle [12]. In other words,? selling carbon credits requires proof that without the prospect of being turned into credits, the process of farming or capturing a given amount of CO2 couldn’t have happened. But if restoring Nature is mandatory (ultimately resulting in storing carbon in the soil), additionality can’t be proven and that threatens the sale of credits.?

The lack of support takes other shapes and forms. More generally, farmers face other obstacles such as carbon prices that are too low in the voluntary carbon market. They also struggle with a knowledge gap for implementing these new practices: it’s hard for any professional to make deep changes to the way they work, and this is especially true in the case of farming where the farmer is required to perform their job daily and throughout the year, with little time to learn new practices and little means to transition. Last but not least, there is a general lack of resources to support such transitions from one agricultural system to another, namely funding and knowledge support.?

Solutions that can reconcile today with tomorrow exist, and regenerative agriculture is a good example as it offers a path to satisfying the needs of both farmers and society. They need more support however, and perhaps the upcoming elections could give us the opportunity to promote these win-win options - and implement them fast.

Sources:

1. Lisa O’Carroll and Angelique Chrisafis, “EU to Delay New Green Rule in Bid to Appease Protesting Farmers,” The Guardian, January 31, 2024, sec. Environment, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/jan/31/eu-delays-biodiversity-rules-amid-rising-protests-from-farmers.

2. “69% Average Decline in Wildlife Populations since 1970, Says New WWF Report,” World Wildlife Fund, accessed May 18, 2024, https://www.worldwildlife.org/press-releases/69-average-decline-in-wildlife-populations-since-1970-says-new-wwf-report.

3. Katherine Calvin et al., “IPCC, 2023: Climate Change 2023: Synthesis Report. Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Core Writing Team, H. Lee and J. Romero (Eds.)]. IPCC, Geneva, Switzerland.,” First (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), July 25, 2023), https://doi.org/10.59327/IPCC/AR6-9789291691647.

4. Lisa O’Carroll, “EU Nature Restoration Laws Face Collapse as Member States Withdraw Support,” The Guardian, March 25, 2024, sec. World news, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/25/eu-nature-restoration-laws-in-balance-as-member-states-withdraw-support.

5. A. Waldron et al., “Agroforestry Can Enhance Food Security While Meeting Other Sustainable Development Goals,” Tropical Conservation Science 10 (January 1, 2017): 1940082917720667, https://doi.org/10.1177/1940082917720667.

6. “Earth Will Warm 2.7 Degrees Celsius Based on Current Pledges to Cut Emissions,” October 26, 2021, https://www.sciencenews.org/article/climate-earth-warming-emissions-gap-pledges.

7. “Proposal for a REGULATION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL on Nature Restoration” (2022), https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:52022PC0304.

8. Adrian H, “We Need Nature to Save Our Agriculture,” Crowther Lab (blog), April 18, 2024, https://crowtherlab.com/letter-from-scientists-about-the-eu-restoration-law/.

9. L. Schreefel et al., “Regenerative Agriculture – the Soil Is the Base,” Global Food Security 26 (September 2020): 100404, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gfs.2020.100404.

10. Claire E. LaCanne and Jonathan G. Lundgren, “Regenerative Agriculture Merging Farming and Natural Resource Conservation Profitably,” PeerJ 6 (February 26, 2018): e4428, https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.4428.

11. “OP2B - Cultivating Farmer Prosperity: Investing in Regenerative Agriculture” (OP2B, 2023).

12. Sana Khan, “Carbon Farming: Opportunities for Agriculture and Farmers to Gain from Decarbonization,” 2022.