European agriculture contributes to food sovereignty and peace

Good morning, my name is Sébastien Abis, I am the director of the DEMETER association and a research scientist at IRIS, the Institute for International and Strategic Relations.

I deal with geopolitics in the field of agriculture and food security in the world. A very important topic, because the population of our planet has increased by 2 billion in 20 years.

It is also a topic about sustainable development, ecosystems, natural resources, and, of course, adaptation to climate change. We also know that agriculture and food are hot topics when it comes to health and nutrition challenges.

Thus, security, sustainable development and health create a strategic triptych that makes agriculture an extremely important topic, extremely timely. In this situation, Europe turns out to have many advantages and great strength.

We have 27 Member States capable of producing a lot in terms of agriculture, while maintaining a very high quality of production, social and environmental efficiency of our agronomic or farming systems.

We also have a very large diversity, because European countries as a whole are rich in agricultural and food diversity.

In Europe, questions arise in the context of the war in Ukraine, in an international context that has also changed.

Europe must have strong agriculture, it must remain united against the adversities, the adversities related to the climate, the adversities related to the war that has returned to the European continent.

However, we need a Europe that can defend its values, help the world, cooperate with the planet, of course open to the rest of the globe, but defend its interests, defend its standards, and therefore not buy products from other continents.

At the same time, we must maintain coherence between Member States. We have common rules, common markets. We must cultivate respect for others and respect for the effort that farming requires.

Europe is the solution to an agricultural and food geopolitics, which is only a positive geopolitics.

We develop peace, we ensure stability thanks to European agriculture, and this is something worth reminding European consumers who like to have human security on a daily basis.