Session 1: Welcome, introduction of the initiative and wider food sustainability context
Panel 1 : Introduction of the initiative Claire Bury Deputy Director General DG SANTE.
- High number of responses to the consultations. Polarized views in some respects.
- Considerable interest in the Commission: 19 units involve in the USP.
- Society is demanding that the way food is produced is more sustainable.
- DG SANTE is working together with DG TRADE to increment the standards worldwide.
- European Economic and Social Committee will deliver an opinion on this issue.
Panel 2 : Framing pesticide use within the wider context of sustainable food systems Prof. Carina Keskitalo, European Commission Group of Chief Scientific Advisers.
To achieve a sustainable food system for the EU, the central goal of all relevant policy development and assessment must be to ensure food sustainability in all its aspects:
- Ensure a truly integrated approach to bring about a sustainable food system.
- Approached focusing on single issues, marginal efficiency gains and incremental improvements to the current system will not be sufficient and thus will not make the food system sustainable.
- A transformation of the food system re-quires clear high-level goals and incen-tives, with a balanced focus on all three sustainability pillars (economic, social and environmental), with joined-up, com-plementing policies.
“The use and over-use of pesticides is not just a cause of the unsustainability of our food sys-tem but is also a symptom of the unsustainable food system”. Need to bring together all EU policies related to the food-chain and the environment upon which it depends and include broad consideration of costs and benefits to society, with due regard to trade-offs between ecosystem services.
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