Mirror Measures as lever to benefit farmers and citizens

Food import-export: the insane reality

Industrial food production, largely practiced in the Global North, is based on highly extractive activities in the Global South, and fuels the climate crisis through heavy pesticide use, large monocultures, huge factory farms. Monocultures, large plantations of a single crop variety, makes plants more fragile and more susceptible to attack by harmful fungi and insects. The need to use massive quantities of pesticides depends on this cropping system.

One case in point: currently 30% of pesticide active substances authorized in Brazil are strictly prohibited in the EU. At the same time, many of the chemicals used in the Global South are imported from Europe. Furthermore, in East Africa many highly hazardous pesticides are now imported as part of subsidies.

Behind monoculture on an industrial scale is the notion that one must cultivate massively for export. A mechanism that favors large estates, which often appropriate land through land grabbing. Soy today occupies more than half of Brazil’s cultivated areas. It is one of the main causes of Amazon’s deforestation. It is also responsible for serious land conflict problems. A study carried out in 2023 shows that at least 500 soy farms overlap indigenous lands. We are talking about more than 75 thousand hectares of overlap, an area equivalent to countries like Singapore or Bahrain.

We want to see a European Union that lives up to its responsibilities

The EU should take responsibility for the entire global supply chain of imported food and must not turn a blind eye to practices that lead to pesticide poisoning, environmental destruction and land grabbing in the producing countries.

Slow Food Europe, and Slow Food Germany very actively, are raising consumer awareness of this issue. The report Double standards on our plates was published by Slow Food and EU partners highlighting regulatory gaps in import standards for EU third countries. An appeal was addressed to the new EU Commissioners to eliminate double standards in EU trade policy.

The EU can set import standards that are beneficial to agroecological farmers

By establishing Mirror Measures in import standards, the EU can advance and contribute the reorientation towards agroecology not only in the EU, but also in the Global South. By setting import standards that benefit the environment, animals, and the health of people in producing countries, small-scale farmers who produce good, clean, and fair food would get an advantage to accessing EU markets. While now it’s mostly the big corporations who produce for export and get easier access to European markets, the small-scale farmers should be given the same conditions. This is why it’s also important to implement Mirror Measures while considering the costs for small-scale farmers and a feasible and realistic timeline for implementation in order not to put small-scale farmers into disadvantage.

Food and the nature on which it is based are by definition borderless. We can only all enjoy good food if we all work together – well beyond any kind of economic nationalism.