Paris, France
November 9, 2012

Report highlights:

Sustainable development is a top priority for France. A National Strategy for Sustainable Development was developed, resulting in a larger organic industry, environmental labeling, efforts to reduce pesticide use, and research and innovation projects. As consumers are receptive to sustainability, both upstream and downstream private initiatives have also developed, resulting in a number of logos on food products. FAS/Paris outreach activities have illustrated a variety of means taken in the United States to make agro-food production more sustainable. Theses activities have contributed to improve the image of U.S. food products and are likely to open minds and markets to U.S products and methods of production in the future.

Executive Summary:

Productivity in French and European agriculture was encouraged by national and European policies in the decades following World War II, aiming to address domestic food security. While successful, this approach has been criticized by many, pointing that economic competitiveness was reached at the expense of the environment. Since the 1990’s, policy makers and the population have increasingly called for a more holistic approach, combining the economic, environmental, and social aspects for a long-term viable system, i.e., a more sustainable agriculture. In parallel with the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development held in Rio in 1992, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) was first reformed in the same year, and since then several additional changes in the CAP have taken place to combine economic productivity and environmentally-friendly practices.

Sustainable development has become a top priority for the Government, to the point that a very influential Ministry of Ecology and Sustainable Development was created in 2007. In 2009 and 2010, the Parliament adopted laws named Grenelle, which used the concept of “ecologically intensive agriculture” close to “sustainable intensification” currently often used in international fora. The 2010-2013 National Strategy for Sustainable Development aims to “develop a more sustainable food production” and “support green economy and business innovation,” and have resulted in higher domestic organic production and consumption, testing environmental labeling on certain food products, combining efforts to reduce pesticide use, increasing farms energy independence, and launching new research and innovation programs in plant biotechnology and renewable energies.

A variety of voluntary upstream measures have been taken by farmer groups and farm input suppliers to make agricultural practices more sustainable, and also downstream, mainly by distributors and food companies, as marketing tools to meet consumer demand for a more sustainable agriculture and food production. Nevertheless, retail price premium remains the main limiting factor to the development of sustainably-produced food. Organic agriculture, which is the most advertized and subsidized sign of sustainability, remains marginal. In 2012, it accounts for 3 percent of the farmland and 2 percent of food consumption, i.e., twice as low as initially targeted by the Government.

In a country where agriculture is competitive and intensive, many observe that the economic dimension of sustainability appears as the least important of the sustainability dimensions, while the environmental leg is the most visible. The government and retailers do not consider plant biotechnology as a tool to simultaneously increase the economic and environmental sustainability of agriculture. By contrast, many experts in France among farming groups, scientists, and economists point to agriculture’s competitiveness is in jeopardy as long as biotechnology is not adopted.

As world leaders in food and agriculture, France and the United States both consider improving agriculture sustainability as a major objective that can be addressed by both policy measures and individual private initiatives, for the benefit of consumers. Illustrating the diversity of tools used in the United States to make agriculture and food production more sustainable has raised significant interest in France at various events organized in the past by FAS/Paris. These events have contributed to improve the image of U.S. agriculture and further actions are planned in this direction.

Full report

Website: http://www.fas.usda.gov/

Published: November 14, 2012