From Farm to Fork: Human Health and Well-Being Through Sustainable Agri-Food Systems

Abstract

From Farm to Fork Strategy is at the heart of the European Green Deal – the new growth strategy of the EU and a key to the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). From Farm to Fork Strategy is designed for building a fair, healthy and environmentally-friendly food system with an integrated food safety policy in the Union. Current paper presents some of the strategic accents of the main European documents and initiatives concerning future sustainable agri-food systems in the context of human health and well-being through the ecological, economic and social aspects of sustainability. Special attention is also paid to how the future Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) will contribute to the EU Green Deal, food quality and safety, and sustainable development as a whole. Particular examples are presented showing the support to the agriculture and food sectors amid Coronavirus and rural responses to the COVID-19 crisis as collected by the European Network for Rural Development (ENRD). Good practices from Bulgaria are also analyzed regarding the initiatives of promoting local food through farmers’ markets and online platforms and new challenges and best solutions. Conclusions focus on the general measures and actions for the effective transition to a fair, healthy and environmentally-friendly agri-food system.

Spatio-Temporal Difference in Agricultural Eco-Efficiency and Its Influencing Factors Based on the SBM-Tobit Models in the Yangtze River Delta, China

“…Mónica promoted sustainable public management systems by replacing crop production systems with sustainable and circular production models [ 37 ]. Additionally, the EU Green Deal established a “farm-to-table” sustainable agricultural development strategy to reinforce equitable, healthy, and environmentally friendly agricultural systems to wrestle with climate change [ 35 , 38 ]. Sustainable production in agricultural systems is critical to handling societal concerns about environmental impacts and nutritional values while maintaining economically viable production systems for farmers.…”

“Local Production”: What Do Consumers Think?

“…Table 1) in accordance to the three already defined food local production perspectives: economic, social, and food quality. In particular, the keywords selected for the construction of question 3.a the perspective they pertained to and the literature references are described in Figure 1 [9,11,12,20,[22][23][24][26][27][28][29][30]. For this latter question, the respondents were asked to choose three keywords (from a group of 13) that in their perception best define the concept of LP.…”

“…This "local turn" can be related to the affirmation of the local development paradigm in territorial policies, based on the need for place-based strategies built around the enhancement of the endogenous resources of a territory [6,7], to the Sustainability 2022, 14, 3623 2 of 15 strategies that specialized rural regions implement to be competitive in increasingly globalized economies [8], as well as to the growing search for quality products by consumers, which has affected the agri-food supply chains following the progressive awareness of the negative externalities of industrial supply chains on a global scale in terms of product healthiness and socio-environmental impacts [9,10]. Simplifying, on the basis of the most recent contributions in the field of geographical and territorial disciplines, the narratives of the local refer to three perspectives: (1) economic, where the local is technically understood as shortening the food chain that leads from production to purchase and consumption to the benefit of territories [11][12][13][14]; (2) social and environmental sustainability, where the local is loaded with connotations referring to a fairer and more sustainable food supply chain including its environmental and social impacts [12,[15][16][17][18][19]; (3) food quality, where local refers to the production of good and healthy food [20][21][22][23][24]. These local production (LP) narratives are produced by all of the actors in the chain, from producers, distributors/retailers, to consumers.…”

A Spatial Typography of Environmentally Friendly Common Agricultural Policy Support Relevant to European Green Deal Objectives

“…Particularly large changes will be required in agriculture, as evidenced by the future CAP's premise that as much as 40% of total funds will be allocated to supporting climaterelated goals [12]. In this respect, it is of key importance to implement the "Farm to Fork" strategy, which assumes, among other aspects, particularly strong support for areas used for organic farming, such that, by 2030, they constitute 25% of the agricultural land area [13][14][15]. This percentage compared to the area of organic farms in Poland and their small share in the total utilised agricultural area (about 3.0%) necessitates major scientific work (including spatial studies of agriculture).…”