In Commission plans for crisis preparedness, agriculture is a matter of security

In the proposed EU strategy for crisis preparedness, unveiled today, the bloc's executive has made the constitution of food stocks at individual and national levels a priority.

A result of work initiated with a report  by former Finnish Prime Minister Sauli Niinistö on the EU's security challenges, the strategy aims to better prepare the EU for future crises, in a context of heightened geopolitical tensions, a proliferation of environmental disasters, and the wake of the COVID-19 crisis.

Stockpiling food  

As Commissioner Christophe Hansen welcomed in a post on X, the Commission's plan places food security as one of its key components.

In the strategy, Brussels recommends that households have "an emergency kit," including water, medicines, batteries, and enough food provisions to survive "for a minimum of 72 hours" without outside help.

But the encouragement for food stockpiling doesn't stop at the individual level.

According to the strategy, the Commission will "engage with Member States to identify further sectors and services not covered by the current legislation for which there might be a need to act" and "put forward recommendations on minimum preparedness requirements, including a monitoring mechanism.".

At the EU level, "the Commission will propose an EU-wide stockpiling strategy that will integrate all existing sectorial stockpiling efforts". It should "strengthen access to critical resources across the EU", which could include "agri-food products and water."

Brussels' momentum on food stocks

Voices in the European Parliament echoed the Commission's recommendations.

At an agriculture and defence event hosted by the European People’s Party (EPP) on Wednesday, Evi Papantoniou, a top official at the Commission’s department for defence and space (DG DEFIS), urged the EU to think in terms of “strategic reserves and stockpiling,” including for “agriculture, food, or water.”

“We certainly need a stronger Common Agricultural Policy (CAP),” Papantoniou added, stressing that “agriculture is also a question of cohesion, security and defence.”

But in the Commission’s agriculture department (DG AGRI), the idea of stockpiling agricultural products revives memories of food oversupply in the 1990s. “The youngest in the room will not remember the mountains of butter,” said Fabien Santini, a senior official at DG AGRI.

He described food stockpiling as “peculiar,” compared to other sectors due to market distortions, high costs, and perishability, adding that DG AGRI would assess whether the food sector could fit into a broader EU stockpiling strategy.

However, MEP Paulo do Nascimento Cabral (EPP) noted that "if the people are advised to have three days reserves at home,” EU agriculture should have “the conditions to produce these reserves".

A few rooms away in the Parliament, in another event organised on the same day on food sovereignty, MEPs from the EPP, Socialists & Democrats (S&D) and Renew groups gave the floor to a representative of the Finnish National Emergency Supply Strategy (NESA) to present the Finnish food storage model, and to a researcher from the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (CIRAD) to explain the "virtuous role" of the storage of food by states in the stabilisation of international markets.

Criticism of scaremongering

But this enthusiasm is not shared by all.

In a written statement, the delegation of the Italian left-wing party Five Star Movement in the European Parliament (The Left) described the Commission's plan as ‘’pure psychological terrorism.‘’

For the party, as ‘’there is no need for stockpiles if the EU invests in dialogue and peace instead of thinking about rearming,‘’ this new EU strategy ‘’risks fuelling a spiral of violence and fear‘’ among the population.

[ADM, AW]