The Farm to Fork Strategy is at the heart of the Green Deal, aiming to make food systems fair, healthy, and environmentally friendly. It addresses comprehensively the challenges of sustainable food systems and recognizes the inextricable links between healthy people, healthy societies, and a healthy planet. The strategy is also central to the Commission’s agenda to achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). All citizens and operators across value chains, in the EU and elsewhere, should benefit from a just transition, especially in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and the economic downturn. A shift to a sustainable food system can bring environmental, health, and social benefits, offer economic gains and ensure that the recovery from the crisis puts us onto a sustainable path. Ensuring a sustainable livelihood for primary producers, who still lag behind in terms of income, is essential for the success of the recovery and the transition.

The Farm to Fork Strategy aims to accelerate our transition to a sustainable food system that should:

• have 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