While the worst of the summer drought has now passed, EU Commission researchers predict unusually warm and dry weather in the Western Mediterranean region until November, with Portugal, Spain, France and Italy all in the line of fire. Maize yields are expected to drop by 16% relative to the five-year average – much of which is grown in southern France – fuelling a problematic shortage of livestock feed for dairy farmers already struggling to feed their cattle in drought-parched grazing pastures.

Adding to this natural disaster is an ill-conceived bid by officials in Brussels to tackle obesity and unhealthy diets. The EU is currently considering options for a bloc-wide Front-of-Package (FOP) food labelling system – which provide shoppers with user-friendly nutritional value information – as part of its healthy, sustainable food strategy, “Farm to Fork.” However, the France-backed Nutri-Score threatens the Mediterranean agri-food producers that it should be supporting.

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As the effects of climate change become increasingly apparent, Mediterranean agriculture is set to bear the brunt of the storm. To protect the Mediterranean diet and its producers from devastating droughts, as well as misleading healthy food policies, Brussels should lead an EU-wide effort to ramp up the use of innovative agricultural practices, such as precision agriculture and NBTs, which have emerged as promising solutions for boosting productivity under difficult conditions while supporting the green transition.

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