Euroviews. Europe's farms and food are what makes us what we are

Agriculture and food production are at the heart of the European project. From the earliest days of the Common Agricultural Policy, it has been acknowledged that the EU has a responsibility to ensure its population would not suffer food shortages, like those which affected the whole continent long after the end of World War II.

And implicit in that was the idea that farmers should be supported in their vocation.

For me, an MEP for the largely rural constituency of Ireland’s Midlands-North West region, this duty is all the more pressing. Having joined the AGRI Committee of the European Parliament this summer, I’m also all too aware of the sectoral challenges the EU faces in the next parliamentary session.

Earlier this year, the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP) released a report highlighting the urgent need for building climate resilience through agricultural practice. Too often, perhaps, food production is presented as at odds with climate action.

But as the IEEP pointed out, the production of core European crops is facing serious challenges due to climate change. An IEEP spokesperson was quoted as saying that “the production of wheat, olives, and potatoes will drop dramatically in the European continent within a few decades, due to the effects of climate change on production if we fail to take adaptive measures.”

That was before the summer, when consumers across Europe saw the price of olive oil rise dramatically. This, only a couple of years after the invasion of Ukraine, saw the price of wheat and sunflower oil leap.

These phenomena demonstrate the urgency of creating an agricultural system that guarantees stable and sustainable domestic production for Europeans, while also ensuring secure incomes for