The EU food system is at a crossroads.

It faces interrelated environmental, climate, health, and social challenges, which together require urgent systemic change. Since the adoption of the EU Farm to Fork and Biodiversity Strategies as part of the EU Green Deal, the European Union has embarked on one of the world’s most ambitious efforts to catalyze a transition towards a sustainable food system. Guided by the goals of a fair, healthy and environmentally friendly food system, the EU has set up an impressive legislative agenda. The flagship initiative, the proposal for a European Framework Law for Sustainable Food Systems (the ‘FSFS’), is expected by the end of 2023 and aims to ‘set the foundations for systemic changes’ needed to accelerate the food system transition.

Is EU law and governance ready for this systemic challenge?

Yet reforms are taking place in a political climate characterized by the war in Ukraine and geopolitical instability, which has intensified calls for more competitiveness and food security. Within Europe, farmer’s protests are challenging the EU green agenda. In the Dutch 2023 regional election, the newly founded Farmer Citizen Movement (BBB) has become the largest party and their grievances are likely to shape the upcoming Dutch parliamentary election. At this crucial moment, the ACELG annual conference gathers scholars, policymakers, and civil society to discuss the role of EU law and governance in catalyzing the transition towards a sustainable food system amidst urgency and contestation.

EU law and governance are supposed to play a key role in such transition.

However, the current EU institutions, laws and governance instruments relevant to the food transition have been shaped by the paradigms of the currently dominant intensive industrial agri-food system – the very system that requires radical transformation. EU policies are said to be ‘highly path-dependent and siloed, continuing to chip away at problems that are increasingly self-reinforcing and systemic’ (De Schutter et al 2020). Health, environmental sustainability, and social justice have for decades been treated not as integral to, but as marginal to the EU Common Agricultural Policy. This raises the question whether EU law and governance are currently well-equipped for the systemic nature of the challenge.

Systems thinking requires ‘a different way of seeing the world.’ (Van der Heijden 2022).

To challenge the current, unsustainable paradigm of food production and consumption in a systematic way, EU law (and its professional community) must look critically upon itself. Does EU law at present allow to see the world of food in a radically new way? How does a truly transformative EU food systems law look like? How can EU governance successfully bring about food sustainability in a polarized political climate? By addressing these and related questions, the conference also investigates how EU law and governance research can contribute to the broader transdisciplinary efforts to tackle food sustainability challenges (Dekker et al. 2020).

See the full programme here