1. The EU Green Deal – Farm
to Fork Strategy
Krijn Poppe

2. Green Deal
 The coronavirus crisis has shown how vulnerable we all are, and how important it is to
restore the balance between human activity and nature. At the heart of the Green Deal
the Biodiversity and Farm to Fork strategies point to a new and better balance of
nature, food systems and biodiversity; to protect our people’s health and well-being,
and at the same time to increase the EU’s competitiveness and resilience. These
strategies are a crucial part of the great transition we are embarking upon.”
Frans Timmermans,
Executive Vice-President
of the European Commission
2

3. 2030 Targets
3
Pesticides in agriculture contributes to pollution of soil, water and air.
The Commission will take action to reduce the use and risk of chemical and more
hazardous pesticides by 50%
The excess of nutrients in the environment is a major source of air, soil and water
pollution, negatively impacting biodiversity and climate. The Commission will act to
• reduce nutrient losses by at least 50%, while ensuring no deterioration on soil
fertility
• reduce fertilizer use by at least 20%
Antimicrobial resistance linked to the use of antimicrobials in animal and human
health leads to an estimated 33,000 human deaths in the EU each year. The Commission
will reduce the sale of antimicrobials for farmed animals and in aquaculture by
50%.
Organic farming is an environmentally-friendly practice that needs to be further
developed. The Commission will help the EU’s organic farming sector to grow, with the
goal of 25 % of total farmland being used for organic farming by 2030.

4. Comments
 Green Recovery: Climate change and Biodiversity loss are big challenges.
Digitalisation is a potential solution
 F2F strategy has targets, policy interventions not yet specified.
 JRC EXPERT GROUP ON GENERAL FOOD LAW AND
SUSTAINABILITY OF FOOD SYSTEMS Good proposals welcome.
 Some issues:
 Target farmers, consumers or other food system actors?
 Organic farming;
How about other sustainable methods (e.g. FR HVE label)?
Increasing production risks a collapse of the market,
More marketing will not raise demand enough,
Forced mixing (as in petrol) oblige dairy companies and slaughterhouses to
buy in 25% organic (with organic local feed) ??
 Do we need a digital dashboard for farmers with a farm sustainability
report and plan (European Sustainable Finance Taxonomy)

5. Basic economics: supply and demand
Price
Quantity
Demand
Supply
Current
price
Export to
feed 10 bln
Less waste
Less animal
protein
(Digital) knowledge / Precision
Agriculture
Less
chemicals
Food insecure persons: price
or income problem ?
Current volume

6. Digital Dashboards for farmers needed
 Farmers need better tools to measure and manage sustainability with Key
Performance Indicators: substitute (digital) knowledge for chemicals
 CAP Monitoring is now based on satellites. Does not work for chemicals and
antibiotics
 B2C sustainability schemes (like organics, HVE etc) needs data for certification
 Therefore farmers need a digital dashboard with sustainability indicators and
plan. Need to be auditable, integrated with VAT-reporting
 Bottlenecks:
Not a lack of indicators and indicator frameworks
Food manufacturers, supply industries, labels have their own tools and
websites (“type in your data here”)
Who empowers farmers with (ERP) data integration of farm payment/
bank data (PSD2), invoices, farm management systems and farm
accounting >> digitalise invoices with quantitative data in UBL.
Data integration is technically possible (standards AgGateway, GS1) but
chain actors concentrate too much on own big data strategy and block
chains instead of a concerted action that puts the farmer central.

7. krijn.poppe@wur.nl
www.wur.nl
kjpoppe@hccnet.nl
Thanks for
your
attention