Regulating land markets to achieve the EU sustainability agenda

Rethinking the regulation of land markets is central to the agroecological transition in Europe. The EU has bold, evidenced-based policy objectives for food system and environmental transformation. Yet, absent a parallel process for regulating land, these policy objectives will remain watered down or impossible to obtain. The EU has shown commitments to invest in environmental policy experimentation because it knows the future wellbeing of the continent depends on sound land use management. However, there is no parallel movement towards reimagining European land governance. This status quo imperils the EU green agenda and threatens the legitimacy of desperately needed environmental policy. Identifying enticing policy options to inspire new land governance can help fulfil existing EU sustainability commitments and open meaningful pathways to scale agroecology. This research first uses existing evidence from the literature to show how current European land markets—governed by the main freedoms of the EU treaties—weakens the capacity to achieve generational renewal, the vitality of rural areas, and land based biodiversity maintenance. Then we reveal existing and potential opportunities for European land market regulation. Through this analysis we argue that agricultural land is a blind spot in European policies for the transition to agroecology, and thus reframe land regulation as an enabling tool to install young and new farmers, facilitate biodiverse landscapes, and build durable rural economies. Measures like transparency in land markets, public acquisition of agricultural land, establishing a first right of refusal, and taxation to facilitate access to land may unlock land for a new generation of agroecological farmers. Exploration of these policy cases calls for an imaginative expansion of public action on land markets to tackle food system challenges, and is aimed directly at policy makers.