Worries and concerns about food security, real or imagined, have figured prominently in the debate on EU agricultural policy since the Commission launched its consultation document on the recent CAP reform in 2010, stimulated by the price spike on global food markets in the years 2007-08. This week, at the informal Farm Council in Milan on Tuesday 30 September under the Italian Presidency, agricultural ministers will discuss how EU agriculture can contribute to the food security challenge.
One of the issues that constantly pops up in this debate is the importance of food self-sufficiency as a guarantor of food security. Food self-sufficiency is defined as the proportion of domestic consumption met from domestic production. In my view, identifying food security with food self-sufficiency is misleading and, indeed, potentially dangerous if it diverts attention away from more real threats to food security, but that argument is for another day. Nonetheless, to debate this issue requires, at least, good information on the underlying figures and trends.… Read the rest