Forum Regional Conference visits Copenhagen prior to Danish Presidency of the EU Council

Each year, as well as the main Annual Conference in Brussels, the Forum for the Future of Agriculture organises regional conferences and online events to discuss agriculture and the environment at a national level across Europe. On Tuesday, June 3, 2025 the Forum organised an event in Copenhagen, in relation to the upcoming Danish Presidency of the EU Council.

Mark Titterington, Co-Founder Director, Forum for the Future of Agriculture, opened the conference, mentioning Denmark’s Green Tripartite Agreement, signed in 2024 (a multi-stakeholder agreement involving government, agricultural organizations, and environmental groups). Mark explained that what makes Denmark’s approach particularly remarkable is the consensus achieved between traditionally opposing stakeholders – a consensus that was built while farmers elsewhere in Europe were protesting against EU proposals. “Denmark was forging a new approach, bringing different partners together, often with divergent views, to come to an agreement on what a green transition could look like,” he said.

Denmark’s bold approach to agricultural transformation

Mark then introduced a session where Jeppe Bruus, Minister for the Green Transition, Denmark, took the stage to describe the context for the multi-stakeholder Agreement, the goals, key elements, and how it is being implemented. He explained that the Agreement sets the world’s first climate tax on agriculture, along with other measures to reduce emissions, combined with commitments to invest “in an effort to reshape Denmark’s landscape while creating growth and jobs in the agricultural sector”. Along with Denmark’s previous climate action, the Agreement is designed to build a “robust economy”.

Mr Bruus introduced his role as Denmark’s first Minister for the Green Transition, a new position reflecting Denmark’s goal of reducing its emissions by 70% by 2030, compared to 1990 levels, and becoming net zero by 2045. Denmark is ahead of the goal at the mid-term, he said. He also touched on his background as Minister of Taxation, and of the role of taxation in reducing emissions in Danish industry, which went hand-in-hand with investment from the private and public sectors.

“How do we now lower emissions from agriculture, as we have done with industry?” That was the question leading to the new Agreement. Today, agriculture represents one-third of emissions in Denmark, and this will rise to one-half as other sectors’ emissions fall, according to Mr Bruus. “If we’re not lowering emissions from the food and agricultural sector, we are not going to be successful in our climate goals.”

This has led to the world’s first carbon tax on agriculture, a tax on livestock emissions. While the livestock tax may have made most headlines, the Agreement also involves other measures to reduce pollution across the landscape – which is 60% agricultural – and the surrounding fjords and seas. Measures include rewetting peatlands, increasing forest cover by 40% to improve biodiversity, and regulating nitrogen pollution to raise water quality. “We are taking 15% of our agricultural land to forest; we plan to plant one billion trees over the next 20 years,” he said.

The key principles of the Agreement are that climate goals are balanced with society, and there is investment, some of which will be the proceeds of the livestock emissions tax, which will be reinvested in agriculture. The Minister emphasized: “When we do this, we invest also. So we are also going to invest in opportunities for farmers.”

These investments include:

• A green fund of 43 billion Danish kroner, including investing in forests and creating tools for land swaps when farmers retire (to facilitate restructuring farmland from polluting areas to more robust production areas).
• 10 billion Danish kroner for biogas production.
•  10 billion Danish kroner for pyrolysis to produce biochar, (a stable carbon material made from waste that improves soil health and sequesters CO2. The process also generates sustainable energy).
• Funding for research and new technologies.

Towards sustainable production in all sectors

“We want to do it in a way where we are not seeing protest in the streets, where we are all on board, and where we are creating jobs and growth. And in a way that means we take care of our own pollution, not moving industries or agriculture out to other places which they then pollute. It’s also about Denmark having a robust economy investing in the sectors.”

Denmark also plans to develop a comprehensive bioeconomy strategy. The Minister added: “for me, bioeconomy is actually the story of how we combine a traditional Danish economy and European industrialization into a new economy to get to net zero and have sustainable production in all sectors.” This would include new opportunities for farmers.

The transition is even more important because of the need to be self-sufficient in the food and agricultural sector. It is also about producing sustainable proteins instead of importing them from soya production around the world, alongside sustainable energy solutions.

The Minister concluded by expressing hope to “use this as an inspiration, but also to influence policies at the European level as well”.

Panel session 1: Driving agri-food system transformation in Denmark

The first panel discussion delved into key aspects of Denmark’s agri-food system transformation, reflecting on successes, challenges, and opportunities for different approaches.

Denmark’s collaborative approach and implementation challenges

For Hanne Søndergaard, Executive Vice President / Chief Agriculture, Sustainability and Communications Officer at Arla Foods, a key strength of Denmark’s journey so far was the recognition that all stakeholders needed to be at the table. A further strength was that major agribusinesses were already implementing science-based climate targets. Setting targets, she said, was the easier part of the process; implementation would prove more difficult due to the inherent differences in agricultural practices across countries.

“The way you farm in northern Sweden in the middle of the forest is super-different to the way you farm in Denmark in a very efficient 3,000 cow set-up. It’s tempting to think that we can plug and play what we’ve done in Denmark, but I actually don’t think we can, except for having everyone at the table. It’s key as we move ahead in Europe that the framework we get to work with is broad, is big enough for each and every country to target what needs to happen in that country.”

Niels Peter Nørring, Director of Climate and EU Policy at the Danish Agriculture and Food Council, agreed that while the underlying process could be replicated across Europe, the specific Agreement itself should not be simply copied, given the diverse agricultural landscapes between countries.

His organization initially hesitated to join the negotiations but ultimately concluded it was better to “be at the table than being on the menu,” a decision that allowed them to exert influence rather than face stricter regulations. “I think that organisations and governments in the other member states and the EU should do the same,” he stated.

Did organizations enter the process out of obligation or desire? The consensus was that they had genuinely wanted to be involved. Voluntary participation led to better outcomes and greater stability for agriculture than would otherwise have been achievable.

Given his organisation’s initial hesitancy, Mr Nørring explained why the Agreement’s main pillars – 15% land conversion and the livestock emissions tax – were d acceptable. On land conversion, he explained it was voluntary for farmers to join and would be 100% compensated, with decisions made locally. On the livestock emissions tax, he clarified it would only apply to emissions from livestock and manure storage (not fertilizer use) and includes a tax-free allowance benefiting climate-efficient farmers.

Farmer perspectives and the role of innovation

The perspective of a farmer and landowner came from Anne-Sophie Gamborg, Owner of Møllerup Gods, Djursland. She emphasized that farmers respond positively to voluntary schemes when they can clearly see the triple bottom-line benefits: economic viability, social aspects, and ecological outcomes. She also warned about the overwhelming burden of bureaucracy on farmers: “We simply cannot take any more.” She highlighted a concerning loss of trust between farmers and universities/scientific institutions. However, she hoped that the new collaborative approach would yield better outcomes, particularly with sufficient funding for voluntary programmes.

Oskar Björling, Portfolio Manager for Syngenta Nordics, and the son of a farmer, emphasized the crucial role of innovation in agricultural transformation. He highlighted a broad spectrum of advancements, from digitalization, to biological, genetic, and chemical breakthroughs, as well as new business models and systemic innovations. “Disruptive innovation, new innovations… are not really targeted towards enhancing the current modes of production. They’re about bringing new options.”

Traditional sustainability initiatives in agriculture, often driven by regulations or technological limitations, have created a binary approach, frequently leading to trade-offs between productivity and sustainability, he said. “We need to go way beyond that,” with business model innovations that actively incentivize sustainable practices.

Mr Björling shared a Syngenta biological innovation example: nitrogen-fixing bacteria. Grassland trials, he explained, demonstrated significant yield advances coupled with an estimated reduction in carbon dioxide footprint.

Systemic regulation and future outlook

The discussion shifted to the critical need for systemic regulation to facilitate new innovation and technology, and whether panelists were confident this would materialize in Denmark and wider Europe.

Niels Peter Nørring highlighted familiar delays in new technology approvals, but said the new Danish Agreement incorporates a fast-track approval process for specific technologies, aiming to accelerate both implementation and emission reduction.

Hanne Søndergaard stressed that rapid removal of barriers to implement new technologies was essential, remarking: “We had a COVID vaccine within a year.” She emphasized the inherent complexity and tensions surrounding agricultural land use: “We need space for nature, but we also need food production. How do we multipurpose everything? How do we maximise the energy per hectare and the nature value per hectare, and how do we get all of that right?”

Panel session 2: Driving agri-food system transformation across the EU

The panelists considered key elements of the EU’s Vision for Agriculture, the challenges and opportunities in implementing it, and the role of various stakeholders including the private sector, farmers, and policymakers.

The EU’s Vision for Agriculture: A bottom-up approach

Martin van Driel, Policy Officer, Unit Policy Perspectives, DG AGRI, speaking online live from Brussels, emphasized the Vision’s bottom-up approach – different to previous strategies – and the involvement of various Directorates. “It’s a roadmap of ideas that we want to put forward in discussions with all kinds of stakeholders. It’s a bottom-up approach, a change of approach, showing that we recognise agriculture as a strategic asset.”

There are four key priorities: creating an attractive agricultural sector; building resilience to geopolitical and climate shocks; ensuring farming goes hand-in-hand with nature; and fostering vibrant rural areas. Concrete actions and changes to legislation are already under way, he said, such as changing the Common Agricultural Policy funding approach to be more targeted; development of carbon farming and nature credits as market incentives; bioeconomy and water strategies; and faster approval processes for bio-pesticides.
Implementation is aligned and coordinated through an overarching “project group” of multiple commissioners (Agriculture, Environment etc.) who discuss political priorities, functioning like an implementation ministry.

How could the private sector become involved? The Commission aims to give farmers more market power, for example, carbon markets and nature credits can incentivize companies to pay for carbon sequestration by farmers. All of this would link together so that “not only does agriculture become more sustainable, but those who work in agriculture will still earn a decent income. Without that, farmers cannot make the change to a more sustainable farming system.”

Panel perspectives: Challenges and opportunities

The recognition of farming as a strategic sector for food security and landscape stewardship was welcomed by Jurgen Tack, Secretary General, European Landowners’ Organization. However, the focus of subsidies on small farmers was “a major mistake”, he said. The idea that “public support should go especially those who need it the most is politically very convenient, but economically and ethnically flawed… it is not the small farmer who was able to deliver most to productivity, nor to deliver most towards sustainability. We are not going to reach those very big goals just by promoting small land ownership, small farmers.”

Coming from the Copenhagen climate think-tank CONCITO, Simone Højte described the Vision as “a patchwork of aspirations.” It needs to be much more inspiring, she said, and to connect with climate targets. “Emissions from agriculture are only very gradually going down. We see the carbon stored in our forest and in our soils is decreasing. It’s not to blame the farmers or the foresters, it’s because there is a demand, but it’s also because we lack incentives to help the sector go in the direction that we need to go to reach our climate ambitions.” Climate policy, she said, must not be developed in a vacuum but in discussions with all players.

Resilience to climate change is key, said Blaž Kurnik, Head of Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation, European Environment Agency. Europe is the fastest warming continent with the highest impact of climate change; agriculture is the sector with the most exposure to climate change. “Only resilient agriculture can contribute to climate and sustainability targets. So we need to focus and look into how to make the sector resilient.” He also highlighted the challenge of fostering a systemic approach to agriculture, noting that decision-making is often fragmented across different ministries, making complex solutions difficult to implement simply.

Speaking as someone who works “right in the middle of the supply chain”, sourcing crops, producing compound feed, and feeding animals, Kiki Kuiper of Cargill emphasized that collaboration across the entire supply chain is essential for creating a more sustainable food system. Ms Kuiper, Category Lead Sustainability Ruminants (Western Europe) for Cargill’s Animal Nutrition and Health business, commented: “One of the biggest things that we are seeing and I’m experiencing in my daily job is, we cannot do this alone. So we really need to work with everyone along the chain.”

Companies throughout the supply chain have established their own emission reduction targets but reaching them requires shared innovation and R&D efforts. While there’s a common goal across stakeholders to create a more resilient agri-food system and reduce emissions, what’s missing is a standardized approach at the European level. Currently, much of the work is happening through pilots and trials on a country-by-country basis, which hinders broader implementation due to a lack of unified standards. The key challenge is the need to move toward common European frameworks.

As a final reflection, Martin van Driel pointed out a crucial funding challenge, comparing the Danish plan’s substantial budget to what the EU can realistically provide, saying “…to implement all these actions in a systemic way… you need a lot of money which needs to come from the national coffers.”

Blaž Kurnik highlighted the need for a “just approach”, to help farmers in regions where climate change will make agriculture impossible. Kiki Kuiper said that farmer recognition is essential, both through financial incentives and acknowledging their emission reduction efforts.

Simone Højte talked about the “window of opportunity” that exists with the upcoming EU budget, new CAP, and 2040 climate target to align policies for agriculture. Jurgen Tack raised the need to reconcile farmers’ long investment period, the urgency of climate solutions, and shorter political cycles to create stable, long-term investment conditions.

Panel session 3: Putting agri-food system transformation in the geo-political context

How can agriculture and food systems be strengthened in the face of today’s geopolitical landscape and critical challenges like climate change, trade, sustainability, resilience, and the war in Ukraine? Opening the session, Mark Titterington noted that recent global changes, particularly in the US, had created a “radically different world.”

Tassos Haniotis, Special Advisor for Sustainable Productivity, Forum for the Future of Agriculture, and Senior Guest Research Scholar at IIASA, identified three primary geopolitical threats facing agriculture: the “old budget” (complicated by EU enlargement, with Ukraine as a key factor), trade (which he acknowledged provides immense benefits despite current questioning), and climate change.

“The real question is how we can turn these threats into opportunities,” he stated. A complicating factor was the systematic underestimation of the reversal of the long-term downward trend in real agricultural prices. Mr Haniotis summarized the resulting pressures: “We have a pressure on productivity because of prices. We have a pressure on competitiveness because of trade developments, and we have a pressure on sustainability because of climate change.”

He proposed three key actions:

• Preserving trade openness within the EU.
• Embracing openness to science to identify and implement solutions.
• Focusing on harmonizing metrics for environmental footprints.

The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) must prioritize results and performance over rigid prescriptions, he said, cautioning against the risk of distraction and oversimplification in policy-making. “We have to produce more with less.”

Perspectives from Europe, Ukraine and Canada

Brian Vinter, Vice Dean at Aarhus University, Denmark, stressed that resilience is key. The agri-food system must shift from single-product optimization to a more resilient, systemic approach, integrating energy, water, and food, to transform current challenges into advantages for the European food system.

Andrii Dykun, Chairman of the Ukrainian Agri Council, highlighted the remarkable resilience of Ukraine and its farmers: Ukraine is now exporting the same volume of grain as before the war, with some sectors, like dairy, even producing more last year.

Mr Dykun underscored Ukraine’s crucial role in guaranteeing food security beyond its borders, especially for Africa and the Middle East, which has indirect implications for Europe’s security. “Russia uses food as a weapon.” Ukraine was losing grain export markets in 20 African countries and Egypt, with Russia filling the void. Mr Dykun drew a direct connection between food security and migration, noting that if Russia controls food supply to countries like Nigeria, it creates potential migration crises for Europe.

He refuted the notion that Ukrainian farmers primarily seek EU market access or subsidies. As a major commodity producer, Ukraine is a global exporter. “As Ukrainian farmers, we don’t look at European farmers as our competitors. Our competitors are Russians.”

He was concerned that Russian fertilizers are still being sold to Europe, and European manufacturers of agricultural equipment are selling to Russia. He urged a collaborative approach: “Together Ukraine and EU… we are number one in the world food producer. Without you we will not survive as a country. Russia will destroy it. So together we have more chances to survive in this global world.”

Tyler McCann, CEO of the Canadian Agri-Food Policy Institute, joining live online from Ottawa, explained Canada’s unavoidable dependency on the US. “We are clearly on the front line of a tariff war with the US,” he said. “We can say that we have this great option of diversifying and increasing our relationships with Europe or with Asia or with others… but it will never come close to rivalling or challenging the relationship that we have with the US.” Europe, however, hasn’t always been a willing partner for international cooperation, sometimes setting trade terms that others must follow rather than collaborating on common solutions.

Mr McCann remained optimistic about Canadian agriculture, citing “fundamental realities” that favor Canada: a growing global population and rising incomes increasing food demand, coupled with a decreasing number of net food exporters globally and an increasing number of net food importers. He concluded, “For the foreseeable future… Canada will be well positioned to export food around the world.”

Building a sustainable future

In his final remarks, Tassos Haniotis emphasized the need to avoid repeating the past mistake of ignoring agriculture’s environmental footprint and to ensure that knowledge and policy are integrated effectively.

Brian Vinter highlighted concerns about the denial of science, stressing the importance of ensuring the poorest 20% have access to nutritious, good-tasting food to prevent a health crisis. He further pointed to the crucial role of circularity in agriculture: “We have to look at how to close the carbon circle.”

Summarising the regional conference, Hanne Søndergaard of Arla Foods reflected on several key takeaways: food must be seen as critical infrastructure; the complexity of the challenges needs to be recognized; and incentives should be performance-driven. She concluded: “I am optimistic… I think we need to believe that if we work together in the power of many, we can get to the right place. But we need to all stick together.”