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Policies for the ecological transition of agriculture: the livestock issue

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Abstract

The new European Commission for 2019–2024 proposed the European Green Deal with renewed ambition for climate and environment policies to achieve carbon neutrality and a toxic-free environment by 2050. Accordingly, the Farm to Fork and the new Biodiversity Strategies, issued in 2020, set quantitative objectives for fertilisers, pesticides and antimicrobials, organic farming and high-diversity landscapes by 2030. Livestock is directly and indirectly responsible for a large proportion of agricultural greenhouse gas emissions with its feed and forage demand, and agriculture and livestock must undergo radical changes to align. The present policy and financial means, including the Common Agricultural Policy, have proved unable to put the EU farm and food sector on the right track. The policy proposals that I defended in the 2019 France Stratégie Report on the CAP employ public economic principles. Reducing polluting inputs and waste with sound innovations in the farm and food sector needs a coherent policy framework. The Green Deal ambition also requires radical changes in income and social surplus distributions as well as in EU consumers’ diets, corresponding to far higher taxes and subsidies than usually considered in academic papers.

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  1. SMART-LERECO, Agrocampus Ouest, INRAE, 35000, Rennes, France

    Pierre Dupraz

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Dupraz, P. Policies for the ecological transition of agriculture: the livestock issue. Rev Agric Food Environ Stud 101, 529–538 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41130-020-00135-7

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