On several occasions, from the CONSOLE project web platform, we have made known the advances reflected in the scientific articles, but trying to adopt a more popular language to make the most significant advances reach the world.

And this time we repeat with an article that was published in the prestigious magazine “nature communications” entitled “Options for reforming agricultural subsidies for health, climate, and economic perspectives”.

This article has been developed by Marco Springmann and Florian Freund; from the Department of Population Health, University of Oxford.

The objective of this research is to analyze the existing options to reform agricultural subsidies in line with the three key objectives of national and supranational administrations: the economy, health and the environment that we talk about so much on our website.

In the introduction of the article, the unsustainability of the food system that we know today is once again recognized, such as the low consumption of fruits, vegetables, legumes and nuts in favour of red and processed meat; which is causing a high mortality worldwide.

With regard to the environment, the food system is responsible for a third of greenhouse gas emissions and, therefore, one of the main responsible for climate change. Likewise, the primary sector uses ¾ parts of fresh water and occupies more than ⅓ of the Earth’s surface; which means a more than significant impact on ecosystems and the loss of biodiversity.

It is clear, as the research points out, that significant changes are needed in production models, of a technological innovation that allows these changes; but also changes towards the implementation in our lives of healthier diets and with less impact on the environment.

And obviously, agricultural subsidies play a fundamental role towards changing these models of production and consumption.

Springmann and Freund have developed a framework where they combine agricultural subsidies with environmental footprints and an assessment of health problems by countries (economic, environmental and health modelling), creating various scenarios that range from the total elimination of subsidies, the partial and total coupling of subsidies to beneficial environmental and sanitary products, provision of a more equitable view of subsidies between countries, etc.

In the results of the research, although we refer you to the publication, it is shown how the elimination of agricultural subsidies could be economically and environmentally beneficial; although it would have a negative impact on the health of the population. On the contrary, redirecting all subsidies to the production of food with characteristics beneficial to health and the environment could improve the health of the population, reduce GHG emissions, but have negative economic impacts. Partial reorientation of subsidies could mitigate economic losses and lead to gains in some scenarios, but would also be associated with lower benefits for health and the environment. Finally, combining the redirection of subsidies with a global restructuring of subsidy levels, according to GDP or population levels could lead to health benefits comparable to those of a redirection-only approach, but with a more equitable distribution between regions, similar or greater reductions in GHG emissions, as well as global economic benefits.