David's background is in philosophy and economics. He joined the Institute in the mid-1980s to establish a programme of work on agricultural and rural environmental issues. He became Deputy Director in 1992, Director in 1998 and active Senior Fellow in 2016. As well as being an authority on European agricultural policy and the environment, David's specialist areas include EU strategies for climate, natural resources, and public investment. He has an active interest in sustainable development and the growing implications of building a bio-economy. Current external commitments include membership of the Commission's high-level group on the competitiveness of the car industry in Europe. Please contact David's personal assistant via the email address above.
To reduce the impact of the war in Ukraine on global food security, many European actors propose to increase production in the EU, regardless of the associated environmental costs. This blog post intends to refocus the debate on more fundamental concerns highlighted by the food crisis.
In 2021, the European Commission committed to ending the use of cages for farmed animals within the EU before the end of 2023, but no estimate of the costs of compliance with the proposed legislation has been published as yet. This report considers the question of which sources of public funding, EU and national, could be used to aid the transition, alongside the contributions of producers themselves and others in the food chain.
A just transition urgently needs to be planned and enacted for European agriculture. This new paper by IEEP looks into how, at a critical moment in decisions over how CAP subsidies are spent.
European food systems are not sustainable. In light of forthcoming proposals for a new EU legislative framework for sustainable food systems, this paper sets out the challenges that this should address and maps out ways it could be achieved.
This policy report explores systems thinking and essential actions around food system resilience in EU agriculture in the post-COVID-19 period. In preparation for the Farm to Fork conference, systems thinking is essential and action is required now.