Introduction

The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has evolved over six decades to address a broad spectrum of concerns within the European Union’s agri-food and farming sector. Initially focused on maximizing agricultural production in the post-World War II scenario, it has expanded to encompass environmental, social, and economic aspects through its various reforms. This evolution recently culminated in the CAP alignment with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the European Green Deal. Notably, the introduction of the Farm to Fork Strategy (F2F) signaled a departure from purely productivist approaches toward a more holistic, sustainable food system approach in regulating the EU agri-food sector. However, despite these efforts, challenges persist, including environmental degradation, health issues, and economic imbalances. Indeed, the current narrative underlying agri-food policymaking, rooted in unsustainable principles, necessitates a paradigmatic shift to become truly sustainable, ecologic, and resilient. Within this framework, the food commons narrative emerges, rejecting the absolute commodification of food as the cornerstone of agricultural policies and advocating instead for a multidimensional understanding of food as a public good and human right and promoting a more inclusive and participative governance of food systems by collectively organized civil society actors. This book explores the potential of this novel food commons approach, aiming to assess whether and to what extent it could align the EU policymaking for more sustainable agri-food systems.