European Union targets to reduce the environmental impact of farming could cut crop production sharply and turn the bloc into a net cereal importer, grain industry group Coceral has said.

Under its ‘Farm to Fork’ strategy set out last year, the European Commission proposed radical objectives for 2030 including expanding organic production across the EU to 25pc of farmland from 8pc currently, and cutting farmers’ overall pesticide use by 50pc.

The targets have been criticised as unrealistic by agricultural representatives, echoing divisions over environmental standards that have held up negotiations over the EU’s next multi-year farm subsidy programme.

The proposed green goals could lower EU production of common wheat, the EU’s main cereal crop, to around 109 million tonnes in 2030 from some 128m expected this year, Coceral said, citing a mid-case scenario in its analysis.

Reliance

The EU is a major wheat exporter, despite its reliance on imported maize (corn).

“So we won’t be one of the big exporters any more but maybe one of the big importers,” said Oliver Balkhausen, a Coceral board member and research manager at Archer Daniels Midland.

The environment goals could also deepen the EU’s reliance on oilseed imports by cutting rapeseed cultivation, leading the bloc potentially to import more than 10m tonnes of rapeseed a year compared with around 6m currently, according to Coceral.

The US Department of Agriculture also projected in a study last year that EU agricultural output would decline and prices rise due to the green objectives.

That outlook was criticised as too pessimistic in a paper from French agronomy institute Inrae, which said changing farm practices and consumer trends needed to be factored in.

Coceral said the risks of destabilising agricultural markets and displacing environmental problems to other parts of the world showed the EU needed a detailed impact assessment of its green goals.

Reuters