The European Union needs to decrease dependency on imported crops through policy interventions, according to recommendations from a new study from Science Direct.
The study, ‘Subsidising extensive cattle production in the European Union has major implications for global agricultural trade and climate change’, assesses potential market-mediated impacts in 2030.
This included looking at Land Use Change (LUC) and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, of a budget-neutral increase in pastureland subsidy rates in the EU, aimed at increasing pastureland areas to improve the environmental sustainability and self-sufficiency of the EU livestock sector.
The study used the tax recycling strategy (TRS) simulated against a baseline up to 2030 under the shared socioeconomic pathway 2 (SSP2).
SSP2 describes a middle-of-the-road development in the mitigation and adaptation challenges space.
The strategy shows that while 2030 will bring increases for pasture land areas and cattle production in almost all EU member states, cropland and crop production will decrease, causing significant changes across EU agri-food markets.
Imported crops
Crop prices will therefore increase, leading to the reduced output of intensive animal production sectors, mainly pig and poultry, according to the study.
The outlook showed cropland areas decreasing, and most EU countries increasing imports of grain, oilseeds, and cakes, essentially soybean cake from Brazil and North America.
The study states that while GHG emissions decrease in those EU countries where pasturelands expand mainly at the cost of croplands, GHG emissions increase in those countries where pastureland expansion comes with forest loss.
The policy shows that promoting extensive livestock does not meet the objectives of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and the EU Green Deal.
The study recommends that existing policies should be mixed with further plans to foster crop diversification and promote the use of domestic feed sources to ensure “feed self-sufficiency”.
The study also highlighted that spillover effects of international trade “should not be overlooked” when developing regional agricultural policy strategies affecting what it stated were “increasingly interlinked” market areas: food, feed, fuel, and fibre.