EU Food Governance after the Farmers’ Protests

Over the last months, farmers across Europe have been protesting against EU environmental policies – and EU policy makers seem to have been listening. The promises of the European Green Deal and of the Farm to Fork Strategy seem to belong to a different era. How can the link between environmental and social sustainability, and food production be revived?

Since November 2023, the proposed Regulation on the sustainable use of pesticides has been withdrawn after a negative vote from the European Parliament, the contested pesticide glyphosate has been reauthorized, notwithstanding the scientific uncertainty as to its impact on human health and the environment. At the same time, the use of new genomic techniques (NGTs) in food production has been green lighted by the European Parliament.

This event brings together legal, food governance and cultural anthropology perspectives to discuss the legal and policy developments in EU food governance as a response to the farmers’ protests and address the political-economic context surrounding them.

About the speakers

Alessandra Arcuri is Professor of International Law at Erasmus University Rotterdam. She is also a member of the Erasmus Initiative on Inclusive Prosperity and of the Erasmus Institute for Public Knowledge (EIPK). Her research and teaching focus on international economic law, sustainability, environmental law, global technocracy and democracy.

Matthew Canfield is Assistant Professor at Leiden University. Drawing on ethnographic methods, his research examines the law and governance of food security. Located at the intersection of human rights, transnational governance, and agro-environmental politics, he is interested in the ways that social movements and civil society are mobilizing rights to shape food systems governance.

Maria Weimer is Associate Professor at the University of Amsterdam, where she acts as the director of the Amsterdam Centre for European Law and Governance (ACELG). She is also an associate fellow of the Asser Institute for International and European Law in The Hague. Her research inquires how EU law manages complex and systemic risks related to health, the environment, and sustainability and proposes pathways through which law can catalyse sustainable change, both within Europe and globally.

Marta Morvillo (moderator) is Associate Professor at the University of Amsterdam. Her research lies at the interface of EU law, constitutional law, and expert governance and seeks to understand how law can contribute to reconciling technical and democratic sources of legitimacy in societally salient policy fields such as economic governance and risk regulation.