The Evolution of EU Agri-Food Policymaking: A Long Path Towards a Food System Approach

The purpose of this chapter is to demonstrate how the EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has constantly steered toward a food system approach over the decades by embracing a holistic perspective that was not focused on food production only but increasingly envisaged even environmental and social targets within its policy apparatus. This process culminated with the official mainstreaming of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into the CAP 2023–2027 and its synergy with the European Green Deal package of strategies. To demonstrate this process, first, the main elements of a food system approach will be illustrated, showing how it generally marked an important shift in the way policymakers have started to frame and regulate the agri-food sector. To this end, the most significative definitions of food systems and sustainable food systems will be analyzed, trying to identify the essential elements of these concepts. Then a historical excursus of the EU CAP from its early stages until our present days will be provided, describing the main milestones of its transition toward a food system approach. This excursus will necessarily imply even a general description of the Farm to Fork (F2F) Strategy’s main goals since this is the EU Green Deal strategy, which is specifically devoted to designing more sustainable food systems for the EU and since it will operate in close collaboration with the CAP in future years. In due course, conclusions will emerge elucidating how the food system approach increasingly embraced by the CAP could be regarded as the EU’s distinctive interpretation of sustainability within the agricultural and food sectors.