Europe
November 16, 2007
Source:
European Science Foundation
Food has never been more of a global commodity than it is today.
But there is an urgent need to understand the problems that face
future European food supplies within this global market. And so
scientists and policy makers gathered in Budapest last week to
push for a more holistic approach to the study of what Europeans
eat.
The conference, supported by the
European Science Foundation (ESF) and the European
Cooperation in the field of Scientific and Technical Research
(COST), looked at where food comes from, the ways in which it is
processed, packaged and distributed, and how it is sold and
eventually eaten.
Scientists at the conference showed that Europeans sitting down
at their dinner tables are eating a broader range of meats and
vegetables than ten years ago. Europeans demand that their food
tastes better, makes them healthier and can be prepared in less
time, and yet they want this food available year round at a low
price. To meet these needs, food travels many more miles; along
much more complicated distribution routes than ever before on
its journey from the farm to our forks.
“This requires a new approach to describing food supply. We're
advocating a food systems approach”, says Thomas Henrichs, a
senior advisor for the National Environment Research Institute
in Denmark. “The food systems approach includes not only the
activities involved in food supply, such as growing and
processing a green bean and packing it for distribution, and
shipping it, but also the outcomes of eating the green bean on
the environment, on the economy and on the health and welfare of
the person eating it”, explains Henrichs.
One reason to better understand the European food system is the
growth in global markets—the Chinese are eating more meat, and a
large market for dairy products is opening up on the Indian
subcontinent. “Until recently, Europe has invested intensively
in its food system in relative isolation”, explains Rudy
Rabbinge, professor in sustainable development and food systems
at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. “But Europe must
change its food system to take advantage of these new markets”,
he says.
And with Europe’s share of global exports predicted to drop from
24 percent to 20 percent over the next 10 years, Europe needs to
become more efficient to compete in a global market. Scientists
hope that by encouraging different industries within the food
chain to think about the food system as a whole, they can
increase overall efficiency.
Changes to Europe’s own food market is another reason to better
understand the European food system. An aging European
population brings different health demands that could be met—in
part—by altering the food they eat. Migration of people into the
EU has changed European food tastes, customs and traditions, and
increased wealth gives Europeans the means to buy more meat.
Furthermore, longer workdays and the entry of women into the
workplace has left many Europeans with little time to prepare
food, resulting in a reliance on ‘ready-meals’. One consequence
of this is an average meal contains more ingredients that have
travelled further and require more packaging.
Finally, changing energy consumption and the threat of climate
change will force Europeans to think about how efficiently they
produce and consume food. By studying food systems, scientists
hope to understand the socioeconomic, political, and cultural
influences on what Europeans eat. And policy makers can use this
knowledge to steer how Europe manages the food chain—starting in
the field and ending in the stomach—to ensure that all people,
at all times, have access to sufficient, safe and nutritious
food to meet their dietary needs.
The conference, on November 5-6, was attended by 75 scientists
and policy makers from 22 countries and was one of the series of
research conferences organised by the ESF-COST Forward Look
initiative. Forward Look, a flagship instrument of the ESF,
allows scientists to meet people from the world of policy and
help set priorities for future research.
This Forward Look is a multidisciplinary joint ESF/COST
initiative, which involves the ESF Standing Committee for Life,
Earth and Environmental Sciences (LESC), the ESF European
Medical Research Councils (EMRC), the ESF Standing Committee for
the Humanities (SCH), the ESF Standing Committee for the Social
Sciences (SCSS) and the COST Domain Committee for Food and
Agriculture (FA). |
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