1.
www.ieep.eu @IEEP_eu
Sustainable food production and resilient
agricultural practices: How can policies
affecting trade and markets help achieve
SDG 2.4?
Céline Charveriat
ICTSD conference Towards More Equitable and Sustainable Food Markets
and Food and Agriculture
March 16th, 2018
IEEP is a sustainability think tank

2.
www.ieep.eu @IEEP_eu
A few words about the Institute for European
Environmental Policy (IEEP)
• Non-profit, independent sustainability think tank with 40 years of experience
• Expertise and research across all European environmental issues with a major focus on agriculture
as well as global challenges
• A selection of current relevant projects
‒ Low carbon agriculture to 2050 (ongoing, more information here)
‒ CAP Forest measures evaluation (ongoing)
‒ CAP Climate Evaluation (ongoing)
‒ CAP Greening evaluation (here)
‒ Transforming approaches to rural land management in Europe (here)
‒ Interactive Soil Quality assessment in Europe and China for Agricultural productivity and Environmental Resilience (here)
‒ Ideas for defining environmental objectives and monitoring systems for a results-oriented CAP post 2020 (here)
‒ Food waste and plastic packaging (ongoing)

3.
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An unsustainable food system: production
- All areas of increasing and high risk directly relate
to agricultural production and the food system
- Biochemical flows: e.g. phosphorus and
nitrogen
- Agriculture is a key driver of change in the
biosphere integrity – especially genetic
diversity
- Climate change with a rise in GHG emissions
- Land system change, with land conversion

4.
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An unsustainable food system: consumption
• Imbalances in food consumption: increase in
food-related illnesses worldwide and continued
hunger/malnutrition
• Strong correlation between affluence,
changing diets and increased material
footprint of nutrition, with projected total
calorie consumption increase and higher share
of resource-intensive foods
• Food and beverage packaging constitutes half
of all packaging uses, with major impact on
plastic consumption and plastic litter

5.
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The debate around pathways to sustainable production
and consumption
• How much increase in agricultural production is needed
to feed the world and where?
• Uncertainty about productivity trends in a warming
climate
• Acrimonious debates around agricultural models and
healthy diets, efficiency vs. sufficiency
• Dilemmas between competing threats (climate change
vs. biodiversity, closing the nutrient cycle vs. GHG,
energy vs. food)
• What distribution of the effort (within and among
countries)?
• What interdependencies between national and regional
pathways?
• Uncertainty about most effective policy levers and
combination (supply and demand-side, market vs. non-
market)

6.
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What role for trade and investment?
• The reality of a globalised food system:
‒ A number of export and import dependent
countries
‒ Changing composition of trade e.g. high
value products
‒ The size of upstream and downstream
trade and services
‒ Globalised food supply chains
• Contrasting with:
‒ Continued high levels of trade and
investment protection
‒ A polarized debate about the benefits and
downsides of trade and investment
liberalisation on environmental
sustainability
‒ No silver bullet on how best to internalise
environmental costs (for instance how to
remunerate farmers for environmental
services) within a competitive and
globalised setting

7.
Issues for discussion (1)
• Tariffs
• Environmental good and services
negotiations: what scope for
further liberalisation in ag
products and services?
• Subsidies
• Elimination of environmentally
harmful direct and indirect
subsidies (rather than a single
focus on trade-distortions)
• A peace clause for trade-distorting
subsidies conductive to
environmental protection?
• Trade defense
• What use for antidumping and
countervailing duties?
• Carbon pricing and taxes
• Extending to agriculture (incl.
carbon sinks)?
• International transportation:
correcting price signals
• Development assistance
• Sustainability adjustment fund for
a just transition

8.
Issues for discussion (2)
• Operationalisation of article XX
• Trade restrictions/bans of
environmentally unsustainable
products and inputs (e.g. chemicals)
• Voluntary sustainability schemes for
resource-intensive products or
sectors
• Harmonisation of or co-creation of
new standards (e.g. eco-design in
packaging, circular economy
standards)
• Technology transfer and IP
flexibilities to improve access to
greener technologies
• Green public procurement:
plurilateral discussions among
interested parties?

9.
A few concrete proposals
• Closing the knowledge gap on
pathways to sustainable food
consumption and production (and
the role of trade within it)—FAO and
OECD
• Mainstreaming trade into the
agricultural track of the UNFCCC
• Using the G20 agricultural ministers
process as a confidence building
mechanism
• Independent trade and SDGs
Commission under the aegis of the
WTO (with a potential focus on
Paris agreement/new IPCC reports)
• Using RTA negotiations/commercial
diplomacy to explore options
around incentivising sustainability
(e.g. EU-Chile agreement on
organic products)

10.
www.ieep.eu @IEEP_eu
Thank you for your attention !
ccharveriat@ieep.eu