Dutch food policy can also work in the EU

Towards more sustainable food production, consumers must change their everyday eating and drinking habits. Governments and companies should also do this. This will enable the Netherlands to lay the foundation for a European food system, as the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL) explains in a report.

The PBL has the investigation report 'Our daily diet: How governments, businesses and consumers can contribute to a more sustainable food system' published. The English-language report attempts to raise an earlier Dutch-language version from last year to a European level.

The PBL proposes an extensive complex of options for making the European food system more sustainable. The agency does not reason from agriculture or nature, but from the consumption of food. Its footprint, expressed in damage to the living environment due to, for example, loss of biodiversity and climate change, can decrease by a third if consumers, companies and governments eat more sustainably (e.g. eating less meat is suggested), waste less food and become more sustainable (more efficient and careful ) produce.

Basis for food part Green Deal
The lessons from the Dutch edition of the report can also be applied to achieve more sustainable food consumption in other EU countries, according to the PBL. This can immediately form the basis for a more sustainable European food system, as set out in the Farm to fork strategy from the European Commission. A cornerstone for the food part of the European Green Deal, made in NL.

The consumer has to change his everyday habits, says the PBL. The responsibility for this lies partly with consumers, but also with supermarkets, the catering industry and food manufacturers. The latter can contribute to making food production and consumption more sustainable by imposing extra-statutory requirements on agricultural entrepreneurs.

At the same time, they must facilitate farmers in meeting those requirements in a way that is economically viable. The PBL recognizes that neither the consumer nor the chain parties have the solution to all problems. Especially subjects that are more difficult to communicate to the general public cannot be left to them. The PBL places this task with the government.

Convince higher demands
According to the PBL, governments that want to focus on a more sustainable food system cannot avoid a 'system-conscious food policy'. Such a policy "takes into account that the food system is international, complex and conflicting values," it said. PBL† With a 'clear vision' and 'clear goals', PBL promises its readers in the EU, governments can enable companies and consumers to make the food system more sustainable. Theoretically it sounds nice. At the European level, it is also beneficial for the Dutch food export system to convince more countries of the higher demands that the Netherlands wants to place on food production.

What is striking in the report is the retention of the typically Dutch emphasis on 'extra-statutory requirements' as a recommendation for distinctiveness for branded food and retailers. In the Netherlands, this approach has emerged as a policy not to confront exporting farmers and horticulturists with higher legal requirements that price them out of the market abroad; only idealistic consumers pay for this, as last week the Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) noted.

No additional thoughts
In Europe it is precisely the legislator - the government - that can easily impose legal requirements if there is actual political support for sustainability at the level of agricultural and horticultural production and the processing thereof into foodstuffs as consumers buy them. The emphasis on complex market mechanisms then becomes superfluous. It is surprising that the English version of the report does not devote any additional thoughts to this, but also maintains for the EU the very complex change model of many forces that, according to the PBL, do their work in a partly controlled and partly unmanageable market - in hopes of blessing - must do.

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