Food security has been an historical goal of the CAP. However, if it was a source of worry fifty years ago, the situation has since evolved. World market integration has provided new means to fulfill this goal but has also given rise to new risks and constraints. Moreover, the concerns of the European public regarding food security have also evolved. In this changing landscape, it is reasonable to reassess the relevance of the arguments and to rethink the role of trade policies in achieving this goal.

Import tariffs: remedy or poison for food security?

Indeed, from a static point of view, tariffs are the best tool to achieve food security, defined as the ratio between imports and domestic consumption. Through a scissor effect on the ratio, duties will reduce imports and, by raising prices, will reduce consumption. Alternatively, if the objective of food security is defined as having an absolute level of domestic agricultural production, production subsidies are the best tool. Either way, this concept of food security is a poor one since it does not consider the needs of the population and the role of quality and diversification in achieving healthy nutrition. From a stochastic point of view, the argument in favour of domestic production is weaker: food security is then related to the degree of risk of your food supplies - and having access to integrated, large world markets is a better guarantee than having a strong domestic farm sector. Indeed, adverse weather conditions (drought, flood) or animal/vegetal diseases can drastically damage a region of the world (including Europe) but is unlikely to do so in all regions at the same time. In this case, import restrictions and segmented world markets appear to be contrary to food security goals. These theoretical points understood, we can now look to the lessons of the last few decades.

The CAP: a unilateral success story

The European construction and the Common Agricultural Policy are rooted in the trauma of the Second World War. Among them, the wraith of hunger affected European regions that had not experienced food shortages since the beginning of the nineteenth century. This shock meant that policymakers and populations were ready to pay a high price for ensuring local food supply capacity. Moreover, the Cold War and the loss of supplies from Eastern European farms increased the pressure to drastically improve agricultural production in Western Europe.

Therefore, one of the initial goals to the CAP was to reestablish West European food security, not to say food independence. By protecting the European market with high and complex tariffs, the common trade policy has provided the necessary shield to ensure the functioning of the different mechanisms of the CAP. Thanks to high and stable prices, farmers have invested heavily, and productivity as well as production have risen. In the early seventies, the European Communities’ food trade balance became positive. Unfortunately, this success was costly for both Europeans and for their trading partners.

Focusing on the food security target, the CAP has appeared to be a very expensive annual insurance policy for protecting against a very low probability event.

In Europe, consumers and taxpayers have paid a high direct price for the policy, and the environmental cost, due to the intensification of production, was also high. Food safety was neglected (e.g. mad cow disease). European preferences have shifted, fears of food shortages have disappeared, as has the willingness to pay a high social cost for avoiding such a crisis. Focusing on the food security target, the CAP has appeared to be a very expensive annual insurance policy for protecting against a very low probability event.

At the same time, the CAP has had negative impacts on world trade. Worse, due to its domestic success, it has weakened foreign production, which was doomed to compete with a subsidised European surplus. By exporting the volatility of its agricultural markets, the European Union has negatively affected the food security of its trading partners, in particular some of the most vulnerable developing countries. Last, new multilateral trade rules at the WTO concerning agriculture have made the old policy tools of the CAP illegal.

Food security: a global perspective in the 21st century

If food security remains a strategic issue for all nations, the way to achieve it may differ from one to another depending upon their endowments. For insular economies, countries with high population density, or low fertility regions, a large integrated world market is the only solution. The autarkic approach is still appealing for an enlarged EU, which stretches from Ireland to the Black Sea, where risks could be diversified internally. Moreover, the recent surges in agricultural prices and the lack of reliability of some exporters that have implemented export restrictions have fuelled distrust of r dependence upon globalised agricultural markets.

However, the old autarkic solution is no longer implementable (due to WTO regulations), or even desirable. As previously noted, European social preferences have changed, and the intensive production scheme of the CAP is no longer compatible with them. European consumers and taxpayers care more and more about the environmental externalities of agriculture and about, animal welfare. Organic products are more fashionable than GMOs. In this context, the EU should rely on the world market to feed its population in an optimal fashion. At the same time, food security should not be construed in a narrow way at the European level.

The challenge of the next century is to achieve food security at a global level to minimise tensions across the world and prevent forced migration flows, social instability, and even war.

The challenge of the next century is to achieve food security at a global level to minimise tensions across the world and prevent forced migration flows, social instability, and even war. Climate change increases this need to promote a worldwide approach. Changes in temperature and hydrology may have a strong impact on the capacity of European countries, or their partners, to produce agricultural goods.

Based on this evolution, the EU should ensure that its trade policies allow for a better allocation of resources as well as a diversification of its suppliers. The latter is crucial to avoid costly market power behaviour by third countries and to maintain food security. It implies that the CAP should look outside EU borders and help to improve productivity in foreign countries - in particular in developing countries - to ensure food security at home and abroad.