Mitigating AMR through the "Farm to Fork" initiative: autonomy, wriggle room, and competence in European and Norwegian AMR policy development across the food-veterinary-environment nexus

According to Feindt and Daugbjerg, post-exceptionalism is characterized by an expansion of the range of actors and interests in agricultural policy, which is driven by broader societal trends. In this paper we ask if long-term challenges can be a driver in a transition to a post-exceptional policy. "Crisisification" and "emergency politics" are among the concepts being used to describe the current mode of policymaking in the EU – not least since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and the Russo-Ukrainian War in 2022. This paper sets out first to explore whether and how the EU is able to use this window of "permacrisis" to orchestrate the efforts of multiple policy domains towards grand scale challenges with longer time horizons. It thus addresses the fight against antimicrobial resistance (AMR) with a particular emphasis on the "Farm to Fork" initiative (2020) which lays out the EU’s strategy to advance fair, healthy, and environmentally friendly food systems. The initiative builds inter alia on the EU’s latest legislation to curb antimicrobial consumption in food production. It has a multi-sector approach thus involving agriculture, food & veterinary, and the environment. The latter sector has considerably less experience with dealing with AMR than the former two. The "Farm to Fork" initiative thus represents an opportunity for the EU to get the environmental pillar of AMR action "up to speed". This is important for the EU, but also for deeply integrated third countries such as Norway. Important in this regard, is that Norway is not part of the CAP, but many of the AMR regulations following from the "Farm to Fork" initiative will be implemented in Norwegian law. Thus, the second ambition of this paper is to explore the impact of this EU initiative on national autonomy and wriggle room in food policy and environmental protection – emphasizing policy on AMR. Drawing on existing literature, policy documents and new interview data, the paper thus sheds light on the "size" of the wriggle room and its usability from the point of view of Norwegian bureaucrats and diplomats.