Christophe Hansen says his new vision for agriculture and food will be “different” and exclude “eat it or die” targets.
He has a clear goal: to help farmers have a better life.
It’s Christophe Hansen’s first working day in his new job, and he is sitting nervously by his temporary desk in the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Agriculture with some well-prepared talking points.
The new European Union agriculture and food chief , a farmer’s son who hails from Luxembourg, and from Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s European People’s Party and he has a clear goal: to help farmers have a better life.
Five years ago, von der Leyen’s first Commission unveiled the flagship Farm to Fork Strategy, an overarching vision “at the heart of the European Green Deal” to green agriculture and food systems.
The strategy included targets to reduce pesticide use; new animal welfare rules; and a nutrition labelling scheme which were either abandoned or never implemented after a backlash from parties on the right of the political spectrum and Europe’s powerful farming lobbies.
At the beginning of his mandate, and with farmers’ protests still raging in parts of Europe, Hansen pleaded for a “different” approach that will be revealed in a new Vision for Agriculture and Food that von der Leyen has tasked him with delivering within his first 100 days in office.
“Farmers had the impression that it [Farm to Fork] was a top-down imposition,” he said on Monday in his first interview as commissioner in Brussels. In addition, Hansen prefers to speak about objectives and aspirations than about targets. “I’m not a big fan of putting down percentages.”
At the same time, there seems to be little room for agri-food systems — which still account for about one-third of total EU greenhouse gas emissions and are a major contributor to water pollution and biodiversity decline — to slow down their green transition.
“We have to continue our path toward sustainable farming and food systems,” said Hansen, a former member of the European Parliament who sat on its environment committee. “But I want to achieve those objectives with the farmers, and with the actors of the food chain, together.”
Hansen, 42, insisted that instead of telling farmers “this is the percentage, eat it or die, let’s [tell them] we want to reduce pesticides; what are the means needed to get there?”
A new lobby is born
To achieve that consensus, the commissioner will announce a call for applications for a new consultative body made up of 30 farming, food supply chain and civil society representatives , the European Board on Agri-Food by the end of the week.
The board would build on the work of the Strategic Dialogue on the Future of EU Agriculture, a similar but time-limited exercise convened by von der Leyen that presented a final report with agreed policy recommendations in September.
The mandate of the EBAF will last five years, and its members would meet up to six times a year. Hansen will chair its meetings, which aim to provide advice on policy initiatives including his 100-day vision. A first get-together will likely happen before the initiative is presented on Feb. 19.
Even before the new Commission was announced, Copa-Cogeca ,the EU’s largest farming lobby demanded greater representation in the bloc’s newest policy forum.
The new group “will not have a legislative role [nor] replace the co-legislators,” Hansen explained. He sees it as “an opportunity to confront the board with certain political ideas and pathways to make sure that afterward everybody is firstly, informed, and secondly, in line with the political decisions that are going to follow them.”
“It will require a lot of work,” he admitted.
“In the Strategic Dialogue, just five out of 29 participants were farmers,” Copa-Cogeca wrote in a Sept. 20 letter to the Commission. “At least half of the Board should be composed of participants representing the farming world, and Copa and Cogeca … should be granted a stronger presence in comparison to other actors.”
Hansen seemed to be on board with that.
“It will be very important not to disadvantage the farming community because we are speaking about their future,” he said, adding that farmers are more affected than others by the issues to be discussed. “This criteria needs to be taken into account” when selecting members, he concluded. The final decision will be taken by the College of Commissioners.
Evolution, not revolution
A major hurdle for the first half of Hansen’s mandate will be repurposing the EU’s €300 billion farm budget, the Common Agricultural Policy. It is mostly distributed in the form of direct subsidy payments based on farmed area , meaning that farmers with more land get more money than those with less.
While many hope that the next cycle of the CAP starting in 2028 will be a defining chance to make EU farm policy more just and sustainable, Hansen called for an evolutionary approach: “The focus should be to make things better, not make a revolution.”
Giving “predictability and stability” to farmers was of utmost importance, he said, and therefore, “Predictability is not changing everything that is functioning for the last six years, I think that would be the wrong way.”
One of the “evolutions” that Hansen is eyeing is to make area payments degressive, meaning that payouts per hectare would decrease gradually once a certain farm size is reached.
As a negotiator on the file when he was on the Parliament’s environment committee, Hansen is confident of support from MEPs although EU capitals may need convincing. “The Parliament was very clear on that line,” he said, “but we knew that last time the Council was reluctant, [and] that is why it became voluntary.”
At the beginning of his mandate, and with farmers’ protests still raging in parts of Europe, Christophe Hansen pleaded for a “different” approach that will be revealed in a new Vision for Agriculture and Food.
On the other hand, he added, “We can’t compare the size of a farm from one country to another.”
But much will depend first on negotiations on the EU next multiyear budget. As much as the agriculture commissioners’ job is to maintain the share of money going to farmers, the EU’s obsession with competitiveness and growing demands to fund other sectors such as defense will likely take a toll on the CAP.
“Agriculture and food production is a strategic sector for the EU, and it would be very unwise to give away this potential that we have,” Hansen warned, while adding, “We will not have more money in the pot that is something we need to acknowledge.”