Biodiversity vs. consumption and agriculture : analysis of discourses from the European Community on its effort to halt biodiversity loss

Abstract: Biodiversity has been in public agendas since the Río Conference in 1992, yet measures to improve it do not seem sufficient since it remains in a continuous negative status. Moreover,consumption and agriculture have been targeted as the practices that damage biodiversity the most. Thus, this study aims to analyse official documents from the European Commission and to understand how these could influence consumption and agriculture as an attempt to revert biodiversity loss. The research is framed by the Foucault inspired notion of governmentality and the analysis approached from the theoretical concepts of empowerment and agency. This is a qualitative research inspired by discourse analysis, where the analytical procedure of official documents followed interpretation of statements, approaching it from the perspective of sustainable agriculture, based on the assumption that this practice is beneficial for biodiversity. Concern regarding biodiversity loss was present in some of the diverse documents analysed. Empowerment is the dominant discourse spread among consumption documents, and sustainability among agriculture documents, where the Commission expects consumption and production to meet in the market, leading this to a sustainable consumption. However, no direct relation from consumption of agriculture products proceeding from sustainable production (i.e. sustainable agriculture) was found besides of organic agriculture, which counts with its own regulation; nor was any type of discourse aiming to reduce consumption as a sustainable strategy. Furthermore, the results point to certain constraints within the Commission for a partial position that could benefit biodiversity above the market.