The recent spike in food prices has unleashed the “food security” debate. Many have immediately jumped on the bandwagon, trying to exploit it to the benefit of several old schools of thought: protectionism, a defence of the current perverse distribution of CAP subsidies, and the arguments for less environmental protection and in favour of a freer hand with agricultural inputs. The common thread, and common mistake, of these lines of thought is that the world is running out of food and Europe needs, or even has a “moral duty”, to produce more food.

The common thread, and common mistake, of these lines of thought is that the world is running out of food and Europe needs, or even has a “moral duty”, to produce more food.

The EU should certainly ensure it can go on feeding itself and participating in world trade, but there is no justification for policies seeking a short term boost to production, certainly not at the expense of long term sustainability.

Increasing food production in the EU will not automatically contribute to the world’s food security, and it might even increase hunger in the world. In the past few decades Europe produced huge surpluses, which were partly dumped below production cost on poor country markets. The CAP of the 1960s to 1990s did not defeat world hunger; on the contrary, it helped to keep millions of poor farmers in poverty and prevented the development of productive agriculture in many countries which are now struggling to cope with the sudden increase in cost of imported food. While these perverse effects may, to a large extent, have been dealt with by this decade’s CAP reforms, one should not forget the experience of the recent past.

Instead Europe urgently needs to support developing countries in increasing their agricultural productivity, particularly that of smallholders and the poorest farmers. Investing in subsistence and semi-subsistence farmers offers a double edged benefit: on the one hand it leads to very fast gains in development terms, and on the other hand, the least productive farmers have the biggest potential for productivity gains. This productivity increase should be pursued in a sustainable way so that natural resources are not destroyed over time, trying to avoid a repeat of mistakes made in the West. In many African countries, for example, moving to organic farming models would mean a huge increase in productivity compared to the current situation, without harming the environment. As long as agriculture and infrastructure investments are combined with proper land planning and conservation policies, increasing the productivity of small farmers may lessen the pressure on remaining natural habitats such as rainforests and wetlands that are often degraded by the constant need of mushrooming populations to clear more land for highly unproductive agriculture.

In the long term, healthy and resilient ecosystems are one of Europe’s best “food security” assets.

Within Europe we must urgently address the huge environmental problems caused by current agriculture production methods. In many part of Europe we are witnessing the rapid degradation of soils, biodiversity loss, water over-abstraction and pollution and widespread pesticides abuse. Addressing these problems would not only benefit human health, biodiversity conservation and social and economic stability, it would also safeguard the ecosystem functionality that is vital for the long term maintenance of agriculture production itself. The looming climate crisis only makes this more urgent. In the long term, healthy and resilient ecosystems are one of Europe’s best “food security” assets.

In the short term, the EU could give a serious contribution to stabilising global food markets by immediately abandoning its illogical and counterproductive biofuels policy that is harming people, biodiversity and the climate, at great expense to taxpayers. And, it would be helpful if at least the people paddling the “food security” scare were honest enough not to promote burning food at the same time.