What will we eat tomorrow?
In Poland, randomly selected citizens have deliberated on how healthy and environmentally friendly food could become the norm. Their proposals are remarkably concrete. Yet the very government they are addressed to did not commission the Citizens’ Assembly.
There are questions that at first seem to be a private matter. What are we having for dinner? Do I buy organic or conventional food? Meat or vegetables? At the supermarket or the local market? And how much should good food cost?
Follow these questions a little further, however, and suddenly they lead straight into politics. To pesticides and antibiotics, school meals and agriculture, food inspections and advertising, subsidies and packaging waste. And ultimately to the question of who actually determines which foods are cheap and readily available – and which are not.
Food is political
In spring 2024, a group of Polish citizens spent several weeks grappling with precisely these questions. They were given a broad task: How can we ensure that by 2030 people in Poland eat high-quality food produced in an environmentally friendly way?
It was only the second nationwide Citizens’ Assembly of its kind in Poland. And it took place at a remarkable moment. In spring 2024, Polish farmers were protesting against parts of European environmental policy. Roads were blocked, tractors rolled through Warsaw. Few policy areas demonstrated more clearly just how difficult it is to reconcile climate protection, affordable food and the economic interests of agriculture.
A small Poland in one room
Sixty-five people were selected from across the country. The group was intended to reflect Poland as closely as possible in terms of gender, age, education and place of residence. Participants were not expected to arrive as experts. Instead, they heard from specialists, were able to ask questions and received additional information between the two weekends of deliberation.
At the second meeting in mid-June, their role changed. Now the citizens themselves had to develop proposals, weigh arguments against one another and decide which solutions they considered worthwhile. Only proposals receiving at least 80 per cent support became recommendations of the Citizens’ Assembly. Thirty-two proposals cleared this unusually high threshold.
Mateusz Wojcieszak, chair of the organising Pole Dialogu Foundation, has described the particular value of such processes in broader terms. People did not merely learn new things, he said. More importantly, they began to “believe in democracy” again. Research into citizens’ assemblies suggested that after taking part, people were more likely to believe they could talk to others even if they held completely different political views.
More scrutiny, not less
The two recommendations receiving the strongest support each won 96.2 per cent of the vote.
One called for better food education and stronger support for high-quality and organically produced food. The other demanded stricter government standards for conventionally produced food – particularly concerning residues of pesticides, fertilisers, antibiotics and other potentially harmful substances.
Another 94.2 per cent called for more frequent and comprehensive food inspections, with the results made public. And 92.3 per cent wanted stricter controls on food labelling and tougher penalties for misleading consumers. The same proportion supported tax relief for food donated to people in need.
The state should be paying attention
The picture that emerges is striking. The citizens did not primarily want to educate individual consumers so that they would make the morally correct decision in front of the supermarket shelf. They wanted to change the conditions under which that decision is made.
That can be seen in the language of their recommendations. One of the most strongly supported proposals begins with the words “I strongly recommend” that the responsible ministries tighten quality standards for conventional food. Controls should consider not only individual pesticides, but also their combined effects.
Learning about food
Schools were particularly important to the citizens. Some 92.3 per cent supported teaching children more about healthy eating and food production from kindergarten through primary and secondary school. School gardens could form part of this: sowing seeds, harvesting crops, processing food, perhaps even selling the produce at a school fair.
Another recommendation went a step further. Schools should test diets that are not only healthy but also place as little strain as possible on the environment. Pilot schemes should be established first. Public institutions should also use their purchasing power: kindergartens, schools and other communal kitchens should buy more organic and locally produced food.
A school lunch thus suddenly becomes a matter of agricultural policy.
Not against farmers
The Citizens’ Assembly did not simply demand tougher requirements for agriculture. Many of its recommendations concerned ways of supporting farmers through a transition.
Small family farms and organic farms should receive financial and marketing support. Regional markets and market halls should be strengthened, shortening the distance between producers and consumers. There should be more financial support for environmentally friendly technology. Farmers switching to biological crop protection and other methods that reduce chemical use should also receive assistance.
A country arguing about its farmers
Just how sensitive this issue is in Poland became apparent at precisely the time the Citizens’ Assembly was meeting. In June 2024, Agriculture Minister Czesław Siekierski praised the development of Polish agriculture since the country joined the European Union. One could see, he said, “how well Polish farmers have made use of the opportunity” offered by the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy. Despite numerous difficulties, Poland had achieved a strong position in Europe and around the world.
The Assembly’s recommendations therefore do not amount simply to an ecological transformation imposed against the interests of farmers. Rather, they seek something resembling a bargain: higher standards for food and the environment, but greater support for those who produce that food.
Research should receive more funding as well. Advisory and research institutions should cooperate more closely so that knowledge reaches farms more easily. And regulations governing the processing of food directly on farms should be simplified.
Whom can you trust when buying food?
Another idea runs through many of the recommendations: the state should ensure that people can trust the food they buy.
The citizens want an understandable quality-label system, public information about organic and high-quality products, and more effective food monitoring. The use of antibiotics in livestock farming should also be more closely controlled.
And because even the best label is of little use if nobody understands it, they propose a uniform, easy-to-read labelling system. A smartphone app could also allow consumers to retrieve information about a food product easily.
What makes us buy
The citizens did not focus solely on what is produced. They also considered what encourages people to buy it. They called for legal restrictions on advertising for highly processed foods. Another recommendation proposed a campaign promoting fruit and vegetables that may not conform to conventional standards of appearance but are perfectly edible.
Modern technology should also help tackle food waste. A free app could help people plan purchases, remind them of expiry dates and provide information about origin, ingredients and environmental impact. Packaging should be reusable, biodegradable or made from other more environmentally friendly materials.
One can argue about every one of these proposals: about costs, regulation, responsibilities and how far the state should tell people and businesses what to do. But that is precisely what makes the result interesting. These demands did not come from the manifesto of an environmental organisation. They came from a randomly selected group of Polish citizens.
And what will politics do with it?
This is where the fundamental problem with this Citizens’ Assembly begins. It was not commissioned by the Polish government or parliament. It was organised by the Pole Dialogu Foundation together with the Institute for Sustainable Development and the European REAL DEAL research consortium. The Assembly had no formal connection to the Polish government or parliament.
That distinguishes it from citizens’ assemblies in which a government promises before the first name is drawn that it will respond to the results. Here, the organisers could only undertake to send the final report, voting results and recommendations to politicians and the media.
A voice without a commissioner
This is not merely a Polish problem. It touches on a fundamental question about citizens’ assemblies: What is the value of the most careful deliberation if nobody is obliged to respond to its outcome?
Sixty-five people are selected. They spend weeks acquiring knowledge. They listen to one another, weigh competing interests and agree on proposals with majorities of more than 80, sometimes more than 90 per cent. And in the end, their political impact depends on whether someone in a ministry decides to listen.
Wojcieszak of Pole Dialogu nevertheless sees something in such processes that goes beyond individual recommendations. People learn that it is possible to have a conversation with someone “who has other, different views.” For him, this amounts to an effect on democracy itself.
Between food and security
Meanwhile, the political debate continued. At the end of 2024, Agriculture Minister Siekierski put another concept at the centre of attention: food security. In his view, it should become one of the foundations of Poland’s presidency of the Council of the European Union in 2025.
Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski also spoke about a new food policy in November 2024. People in the big cities wanted healthy Polish products at affordable prices too, he said. Poland needed a sensible food policy in which products travelled, wherever possible, “from field to table” without unnecessary intermediaries.
That sounds remarkably similar to some of the Citizens’ Assembly’s recommendations: regional supply chains, shorter distances, good food and economic security for farmers. There is, however, no evidence that Trzaskowski or the government adopted these positions because of the Assembly.
Democracy on trial
Poland now has some experience with citizens’ assemblies. Cities including Gdańsk, Warsaw, Kraków and Rzeszów have asked randomly selected citizens to deliberate on political questions. At national level, however, the process remains young. The Citizens’ Assembly on Food Policy was only the country’s second nationwide assembly.
Perhaps this is where the more important story of this Citizens’ Assembly lies. In Poland, as elsewhere, debates about food usually take place between organised interests: farmers, the food industry, environmental organisations, retailers, consumer groups and ministries. Each side knows its figures, its arguments and its red lines.
The Citizens’ Assembly added a group that normally does not sit around the same table: the people who buy, eat and pay for food.
What remains?
The result is neither particularly radical nor particularly timid. The citizens want stricter inspections, fewer pesticides and antibiotics, better labelling, more organic farming and changes to food served in schools. At the same time, they want to support small farms, strengthen regional markets and provide public support for the transformation of agriculture.
That may contain the most interesting lesson of the experiment. In public debate, environmental protection, affordable food and the interests of farmers are often presented as opposing goals. The randomly selected citizens instead tried to think about them together.
Whether any of this becomes policy, however, is not for the Citizens’ Assembly to decide.
And so the experiment ends with a question that reaches far beyond food: What happens when citizens are given the time to engage seriously with a political problem – but politics is under no obligation to listen to them?