In what is a fast moving a still fluid situation, it appears the Walloon administration in Belgium may have made CETA signing conditional on a significant change – the international court element to the treaty may now, it appears, be subject to European Court scrutiny. […]
Agriculture Commissioner Phil Hogan appears to be sticking to his guns on the banning of pesticides in Ecological Focus Areas, despite the opposition of 18 EU Member States. So what’s next? […]
New data from Lower Saxony on the registration of ecological focus area (EFA) for 2016 are published. The data shows almost no changes: The EFA is still an expensive measure for taxpayers with little positive impact on biodiversity. Sebastian Lanker gives ARC2020 this exclusive on the topic. […]
UK mainstream media dubbed it a “food waste supermarket” when it opened in September, but The Real Junk Food Project’s first warehouse in Pudsey, Yorkshire, is unlike anything that most people would describe as a supermarket. To be sure, it has shelves loaded with supermarket food products, alongside fresh produce from allotments and surplus products discarded by a food photography studio, but there is not a shelf-edge price label in sight. Instead, users are invited to “pay what they feel” – either in cash or in kind. Local supermarkets have agreed to donate stock which they can no longer sell legally, but is still fit for human consumption. In so doing, they save the cost of disposal and The Real Junk Food Project can “feed bellies, not landfill.” The depot is the latest in a series of projects and pop-up cafés that tackle food waste head-on. The Real Junk Food Project network has members across the UK, France and Germany: contact details can be found on its website at www.therealjunkfoodproject.org By loading the video, you […]
Hannes Lorenzen tells us about war, peace, regulations, EU relations and rural ways in this letter from Ukraine. […]
A highlight of Cork2 was the sobering presentation of Janez Potočnik of The Rural Investment Support for Europe (RISE) Foundation. he is also Co-Chair of UN International Resource Panel, Former European Commissioner for Environment, and previously of Research. […]
Pesticide victims Laurent Guillou and Stéphane Rouxel have won their cases against former employer Nutréa-Triskalia. The former employees at the Plouisy site of the giant Breton agricultural cooperative Triskalia suffered acute exposures to pesticides in 2009 and 2010. They suffer from hypersensitivity to everyday household chemicals (MCS), a condition that has also been recorded among Gulf war veterans. The decision by the Tribunal des Affaires de Sécurité Sociale (TASS) at Saint Brieuc to award damages to pesticide victims is the first of its kind to recognise MCS in the French justice system. After years of legal battles, their accusations that the massive use of pesticides in food production is an environmental and health scandal are being vindicated. Read: Pesticides – Did Co-op’s Practices Lead to Cancers? MCS is a debilitating condition: in the soundtrack of a campaign video [Paroles-de-Plouisy], Rouxel recounts that in his case it can be triggered by something as trivial as encountering people wearing perfume or after shave. The effects can come hours or days later and include severe headaches as well […]
A recent high level report by Karl Falkenberg stresses “agro-ecology” over “precision farming” as a way to make EU agri-food policy more sustainable. […]
Community Supported Agriculture network Urgenci held their 3rd European CSA meeting last weekend in Ostrava, Czech Republic. See here for the Declaration, as adopted, in full. […]
150+ people from 20+ countries are attending Urgenci’s third European CSA gathering in Ostrava this weekend. ARC2020’s Oliver Moore is one of them. Here’s his account of the story so far. […]
A fascinating power play is emerging in France around pesticides. Some noteworthy and challenging pesticide reduction policies policies, such as Ecophyto 2, have emerged. Meanwhile, major politicians are clashing and occasionally out flanking each other. Peter Crosskey unpacks the story for us, in an exclusive article. […]
Despite a positive sounding declaration at Cork 2.0, Rural Development risks serious funding cuts and de-prioritisation post 2020. This is a key message emerging – albeit obliquely – from Cork 2.0, the EU Commission Rural Development conference. Oliver Moore has more. […]
What may turn out to be a very important EU Commission Rural Development event is being held in Cork, Ireland, this coming Monday. Oliver Moore explains why. […]
The CAPSELLA project has just launched an interactive map and is also conducting a stakeholder survey. Oliver Moore has more. […]
In anticipation of the 2015 figures on direct payments distribution, due in a couple of weeks, we highlight a new post by Alan Matthews using the 2014 figures. Matthews shows in detail just how unbalanced CAP payments are between higher and lower income farmers. […]
Agricultural and Rural Convention