Prospects of the European Green Deal Implementation to Agriculture under Conditions of the War in Ukraine

Editorial

Well-known, the European Green Deal aims to make Europe the first climate-neutral continent by 2050. It should be achieved by the different dimensions and strategies. Particularly, Farm to Fork strategy as the heart of the European Green Deal provides to make food systems fair, healthy and environmentally-friendly [1]. Generally, after transition the European food system should obtain a neutral or positive environmental impact, help to mitigate climate change and adapt to its impacts, reverse the loss of biodiversity, ensure food security, nutrition and public health, making sure that everyone has access to sufficient, safe, nutritious, sustainable food, preserve affordability of food while generating fairer economic returns, fostering competitiveness of the EU supply sector and promoting fair trade [2]. Thus, agriculture as a sector of economy should lead to a decrease in carbon dioxide equivalent emissions by reducing the use and risk of chemical pesticides by 50%, by decreasing nutrient losses by at least 50% (while ensuring no deterioration on soil fertility), by reducing fertiliser use by at least 20%, by decreasing the sales of antimicrobials for farmed animals and in aquaculture by 50% and by increasing up the total farmland under organic farming by up to 25% by 2030 [3]. Obviously, the transition to a sustainable, resilient, and climate-neutral (carbon farming) agriculture model requires, first of all, an accelerating fall down in the fossil fuel and chemical inputs use in the sector.

Russian invasion of Ukraine disrupted a lot of industrial and food supply chains. Restriction of fossil fuel and raw material export from Russia and Belorussia by sanctions, destruction of the Ukrainian food export capacity by missile strikes, mining territories and blockage the Black Sea routes led to global inflation.

In April 2022, the World Bank did a forecast that energy prices would increase by more than 50% this year [4]. It should be noted that world oil prices soared to highs not seen since 2008. Thus, the OPEC basket oil price equaled 126.51 U.S. dollars per barrel in March 2022 as a result of the Russia- Ukraine war [5]. Despite the oil price reduction to 92.17 U.S. dollars per barrel on October 24 the average level of price has significantly exceeded the previous period in December 2021. On the other hand, fertiliser prices have risen nearly 30% since the beginning of 2022. Rising natural gas prices, especially in Europe, led to widespread production cutbacks in ammonia - an important input for nitrogen-based fertilisers. Particularly, fertiliser prices rose in response to the war in Ukraine, reflecting the impact of economic sanctions and disruptions in Black Sea trading routes [6]. As the result, food has been more expensive worldwide. It is not the significant threat for the EU`s consumers because their food expenditures, on average, made up less than 15% of total household spending [7]. However, the population in developing countries suffers from food scarcity. The FAO estimated that 38.3 million people in West Africa and the Sahel alone would face severe food insecurity by August 2022 without significant intervention [8].

In turn, the Russian invasion of Ukraine made the unique and unprecedented economic preconditions for accelerating the European Green Deal implementation in different areas, particularly in agriculture. It could be a new production model which is based on sustainable practices within organic and carbon farming not only in the EU. In this case, the least developed and primarily developing countries will probably obtain the opportunity to increase their agri-food production and export which means rapid economic growth, going up the incomes of poor farmers and improvement of human well- being [9]. Here, the EU could use long-term funds to support developing countries implement the “national pathways” to sustainable food systems [8].