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The EU has also set ambitious emission reduction targets for the agricultural sector, and required farmers to give up their most effective crop protection products and reduce their use of fertilisers. How does this translate into a financially sustainable agriculture that can deliver its basic food function? - Ottó Toldi, Senior Researcher at the MCC's Climate Policy Institute, discussed this question at the MCC Győr.
At the beginning of the presentation, Ottó Toldi said that the necessary technology transfers in the agricultural system have not been made at EU level in recent years. In addition to these serious shortcomings, the restructuring of the agricultural structure and the inadequacies of the support system have led to the disappearance of one third of family farms in Europe between 2006 and 2021. Farmers are constantly being pressured by the European Commission to reduce emissions, while technologies that promote sustainability do not yet exist and could be used. These technological and financing gaps are also putting the competitiveness and profitability of European agriculture at serious risk. The maintenance of irrigation systems, the use of chemical products such as sprays and fertilisers, or the operation of agricultural machinery are all energy-intensive technologies that increase the sector's emissions.
The key question for EU agricultural policy is how to make European agriculture financially sustainable and able to fulfil its basic food function. In addition to economic and environmental issues, an important social fact is that farmers and agricultural producers still retain some of the traditional social forms that are resented in increasingly atomised and individualistic western societies. The lead researcher also underlined that farmers have developed a very good network of contacts, which helps them a lot in expressing their interests and in political advocacy.
