Newsflash

NewsFlash December 2015

Hello and welcome to our December newsletter! The Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change – better known as COP21  – is underway in Paris. As we saw in the run up, with the Bonn talks we covered recently, nation states mostly argue their corner and real ambition is quite low: 2.7 degrees Celsius warming might be an optimistic outcome of the COP21, based on Bonn – and that’s hardly enough to prevent runaway climate change, when 2 degrees is the recognised ceiling. Agri-food is implicated in both Climate Change mitigation and adaptation. We’vesharpened our focus on these plus on regenerative agriculture, on soil, land use change and a host of other factors. In short we believe there are ways food production can become truly sustainable as outlined by IPES and others over recent months. This involves climate change and other food security, agroecology and food sovereigntydimensions, as we explore in numerous posts on our site. Let’s all work towards a real, sustainable agri-food sector, one that can hep us cope with […]

Newsflash

NewsFlash November 2015

Hello and welcome to our November newsletter!Can rural areas step up to help with Europe’s refugee crisis? What is the rural response to climate change? And what are the core issues of inequality between rural and urban regions in the EU? These and other topics questions are being assessed this coming week in Austria at the second European Rural Parliament. (Live video links also at post)We’ve been busy covering GMO’s in recent weeks: EU Member States and regions have either opted in or out of the option of growing, and that has divided the UK. Romanian farmers however, seem unified in their rejection of the technology. In what has been one of our most popular stories ever – one with some real detective work conducted by Ramona from Eco Ruralis – we reveal how much a failed crop GM Maize is in what was once the darling nation-state of the biotech sector. (This story has been shared from our site over 11,000 times on facebook, a stat which excludes other shares from elsewhere). Some more […]

Newsflash

ARC NEWSFLASH March 2015

ARC NEWSFLASH March 2015 Hello from Oliver and Luise, Arc2020’s Communication team! Welcome to our March newsletter. We’re still full of enthusiasm after meeting up with almost 200 other civil society activists at our Good Food, Good Farming conference in Brussels. People from dozens of food and farming NGOs, as well as farmers, policy makers, academics and concerned citizens, all converged on the Belgian capital last month to tackle the question: how do we fix our broken food system? The aim of the event was to develop a roadmap for a common food policy. You can contribute to this process by going to our roadmap page and giving us your thoughts. The conference link takes you to a great 5 minute video overview, as well as some fantastic graphic harvesting art from the event itself, and lots more. Well worth a visit. We’re also running a Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) and agroecology project, and have published a brochure outlining ten of the best examples of ‘transitioning towards agroecology’ around the EU. North, south east, and west of the Continent are all covered, as are many agri-food […]

Newsflash

ARC Newsflash – Special Edition 2015

View this email in your browser Report: 50,000 take to the streets of Berlin to say: We Are Fed Up!  This year’s  “Wir haben es satt!” (We are fed up!) march surpassed even last year’s record attendance, with 50,000 people marching through the streets of Berlin. Their aim? To say no to a broken industrialised globalised food system and yes to an alternative. Find our extended report here. Coming up: Good Food Good Farming Conference Brussels – 10 and 11th FEBRUARY 2015 GOOD FOOD, GOOD FARMING CONFERENCE Renewing civil society’s agenda towards sustainable food and agriculture and a living countryside Who? ARC 2020 platform, Friends of the Earth Europe and the organic movement IFOAM, in collaboration with the European Economic and Social Committee invite you to a conference on the future of farming and food, on fair trade and sustainable rural policies.  Why? This 1.5-days event brings together representatives from civil society, grassroots groups, researchers, national/regional authorities, policymakers and more to: 1. Assess the implementation of the reformed CAP 2014-2020, prospects of agricultural sustainability and of rural renaissance. 2. Identify milestones […]

Newsflash

ARC NEWSFLASH December 2014

ARC NEWSFLASH December 2014 Save the date! 10 and 11th February 2015 Conference & Civil society gathering on GOOD FOOD and GOOD FARMING Renewing civil society’s agenda towards sustainable food and agriculture on  10 and 11th February 2015 in Brussels Hello from Oliver and Luise, Arc2020’s Communication team! Welcome to our December newsletter, this month we have some exciting news to share:The Agricultural and Rural Convention 2020 (ARC2020), Friends of the Earth Europe and IFOAM EU invite you to participate in a civil society gathering and conference on February 10/11 2015 in Brussels, hosted by the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC). Why you should attend? People of all ages across Europe are hungry for change and want to see better agri-food policies based on agro-ecological principles. This conference and gathering will help develop a civil society agenda for the agroecological changes needed in the food system, including in Europe’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Good food and farming practices already taking place across Europe will be highlighted. This 2-day event brings together representatives from civil society, grassroots groups, researchers, national/regional authorities, policymakers and more […]

Newsflash

ARC Newsflash November 2014

Hello from the Oliver and Luise, Arc2020’s Communication team! Welcome to our November newsletter.We’ve a great range of news and views for you this month, with land access in France, short supply chain innovations in Romania, an agroecology report from September’s FAO international symposium and a round up of the growing opposition to TTIP as main features.Along with these key stories, October was a busy month for us, with people from all over the Continent informing our site. Recent stories include: The facts on corporate control of the EU’s seed supply: case study from Romania Empowering Rural Stakeholders from the Western Balkans Manage grasslands as if our lives depended upon it What happened to the sustainable food communication? Nourish Scotland on the Common Wealth of Food Do keep a watchful eye on the work we are doing with Friends of the Earth Europe on a project which will make the most of the CAP. Its a project about making it easier to do agroecology within the terms of current EU agri-food policies. So we are supporting the establishment of farmers’ markets in Sofia […]