The potential role of producer and consumer food policies in the EU to sustainable food and nutrition security

EU sustainable food and nutrition security is no sure-fire success. The future of
the agro-food system is uncertain and subject to different macro-level trends.
Previous analysis revealed the role of food system drivers creating challenges and
opportunities for dietary and environmental improvements under certain future
constellations. However, these challenges and opportunities need to be addressed by policies to allow for actual improvements in the sustainability
performance of EU food systems, for people, planet and profit. In this deliverable,
an assessment and pre-test of potential policy measures is carried out. The policy
analyses are contrasted to a ‘business-as-usual’ baseline scenario with current
trends of food system drivers. We apply the SUSFANS modelling toolbox in order
to test relevant policy measures in four distinct aqua-agro-food policy sectors.
Regarding health and nutrition of the EU population, we provide a ranking of
potential dietary policies and interventions based on their effectiveness,
implementation costs and restrictiveness for consumers and producers. Based on
this overview, options for health and nutrition policy are designed containing a
mixture of different policy instruments. These apply – in line with the allocation
of policy responsibilities in the EU - at the level of individual member states and
not at the realms of an EU policy. In the context of the Common AgriculturalPolicy (CAP), we assess the impact of a livestock density restriction on EU Agricultural areas. Results indicate a reduction of soil nutrient surpluses (-9 to -13%) and of greenhouse gas emissions (-9%) at EU average and considerably stronger in the livestock density and over-fertilization hotspots. Trade openness restricts the impact on food consumption and dietary change of EU consumers. Three Common Fisheries Policies (CFP) are tested with the newly developed fish modules of GLOBIOM and CAPRI: Directing capture in EU waters to levels that keep fish stocks at the maximum sustainable yield (MSY), or at the maximum economic yield (MEY), and the implementation of national aquaculture growth plans composed by EU member states. Our results show limited policy impacts due to the rlatively small size of the EU fish producing sector with some trade but
limited consumption changes. Finally, different storage policies are tested with the new short-term volatility module of GLOBIOM. The scenarios reveal that storage availability and intervention prices reduce price volatility caused by yield shocks. The assessments illustrate that individual, yet unaligned policy measures can already contribute significantly to reaching sustainable food and nutrition
security. On the way to the final foresight assessment extensions are require regarding a) metrics quantifiability, b) the harmonization of metrics computation
approaches, and c) smaller model improvements