SCIENCE ADVICE FOR POLICY
BY EUROPEAN ACADEMIES

Sustainable food report feeds into lively policy debate

Published last month, the report A sustainable food system for the EU summarises the evidence on how society can make the transition to the food system of the future in a fair and environmentally sustainable way.

Within a few days of its publication, the report was cited by an association of some 50 NGOs in  a joint letter to European Commission Vice-President Frans Timmermans where they stressed the importance of resilience in Europe’s food supply as it emerges from the Covid-19 crisis.

And the associated scientific opinion from the Commission’s chief scientific advisors feeds into the long-awaited EU Farm-to-Fork Strategy, expected to be published within weeks.

Taken together, the SAPEA report and the scientific opinion were described by the European Public Health Alliance as

“close to revolutionary… [this approach] is probably the single biggest opportunity for a sustainable food systems transition”.

The publication of the report was followed up by several interviews with the chair of the working group, published by ALLEA (on-line video interview), Academia Europaea and finally by the Horizon Magazine.

SAPEA is now planning a series of public webinars focusing on specific messages from the report, working with our academies, the Group of Chief Scientific Advisors, and other partners from across policy, academia and civil society. Watch this space for more details!