Over the last year we’ve gone through an oil crisis, an energy crisis, a financial crisis and some say even a food crisis. More recently people have started talking about a possible phosphate crisis. The almost Pavlovian reaction of most politicians to these crises, whether real or perceived, is to secure supplies and demand a quick increase in production of food, oil and minerals.

The almost Pavlovian reaction of most politicians to these crises, whether real or perceived, is to secure supplies and demand a quick increase in production of food, oil and minerals.

In the case of agriculture, the response of many politicians can be summarised as ‘boost productivity per hectare now’. Although this is an understandable reaction for people who need to get re-elected every few years, Europe needs a smarter response if it is to achieve security of food supply in the long run. First and foremost, policy makers need to realise that there is no way that Europe can secure a long term supply of agriculture produce if it continues to fail to protect the resource base on which agriculture depends: clean plentiful water, clean and fertile soil, clean air and biodiversity. And Europe is failing miserably to do so. At this moment the Environment Council, the forum where national ministers meet to adopt policy at the European level, is even struggling to adopt a soil policy which would actually improve the protection of perhaps the most vulnerable of all natural resources because it is effectively non-renewable: soil. On the other hand the Council has no problem whatsoever to agree on a biofuel target which seems almost designed to drive agricultural intensification and add to the pressure on environmental resources.

The longer policy makers continue to ignore the real problems facing agriculture, the more difficult and painful it is going to be when reality catches up and the real crisis hits.