COVID-19 pandemic: warning for the sustainability of European agri-food systems

Abstract

Through its latest reforms, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has tried to encourage traditional agricultural systems and the originality of typical local agri-food solutions (eco-conditionality; cross-compliance; decoupling, production brands). However, the process of land concentration continues to generate increasingly large farms and increasingly uniform crop reconversion, even if the EU has explicitly denounced its negative effects (Resolution 197 of the European Parliament of 27 April 2017). However, the dramatic experience of the COVID 19 pandemic has forced us to become aware of how important it is to bring producers and consumers closer together to ensure food security, food safety and food sustainability. Using the proven survey methodology of the GECOAGRI-LANDITALY (Comparative Geography of Agricultural Areas European and non-European) Inter-University Research Group, the authors measure and interpret the process of land concentration in the European countryside and take into consideration, through eloquent simplifications, to reflect on which traditional agricultural systems and cultivation techniques, expressed in historical rural landscapes, best protect quality agro-food.

Keywords

• land concentration
• agricultural systems
• GECOAGRI-LANDITALY methodology
• COVID-19 pandemic