Recent updates

Daily updates on whats new on the ARC website and in the CAP debate

Recent updates

CAP Simplification – simply destroying greening?

June 4, 2015 Oliver Moore

According to the EU Commission, a first set of specific actions towards CAP simplification have been announced by Commissioner Phil Hogan, on issues related to the guidelines for Direct Payments this year. Hogan explained: “Some of the proposals which concern direct payments do not require changing the legislative rules, but can be implemented at the level of our current guidelines, and applicable already this year. I intend to follow-up on these proposals by making 6 concrete changes which should facilitate the lives of farmers and national administrations.” These six changes proposed relate to the EFA-layer (Ecological Focus Area), adjacent EFAs, the LPIS (Land Parcel Identification system) and compensation of EFAs in case of wrong declaration. More specifically, the Commission intends: to accept that Member States, that so wish, only need to map declared EFAs; to allow flexibility as regards the identification of EFA’s in the EFA-layer (concerns hedges or wooded strips and trees in line); to allow hedges or wooded strips with gaps up to 4 metres; as regards the implementation of adjacent EFA, in […]

Latest from key partners

WTO’s COOL Ruling confirms that trade treaties undermine national laws

May 27, 2015 IATP

ARC2020 UPDATE and Comment 28/05/2015 According to leaked EU Commission documents mandatory origin labeling for food will not be introduced. While there is already a voluntary label on mainstream meat products, both milk products and other meat products (such as “horse meat, rabbit and game”) will also only be eligible for the voluntary label. There will be no mandatory label for any meat or milk or processed foods now, according to the ViEUws report, because this would lead to “higher operating costs and a hike in food prices…it would also “disrupt cross boarder trade and increase costs”. So, reports ViEUws, the EU is likely to keep this labeling as Voluntary. (See at  5 mins 51 sec in the recent ViEUws Brussels Briefing at end of this post). This is remarkably similar to the language and reasoning of the WTO, as outlined below by Shefali Sharma. This also points to significant regulatory harmonisation, a form of ISDS by the back door. Article by Shefali Sharma  of IATP. On May 8th, President Obama told a crowd in Oregon: […]

Recent updates

Stop Calling the TPP A Trade Agreement – It Isn’t

May 27, 2015 ARC

Stop Calling the TPP A Trade Agreement – It Isn’t. By Dave Johnson. This a message to activists trying to fight the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Stop calling the TPP a “trade” agreement. TPP is a corporate/investor rights agreement, not a “trade” agreement. “Trade” is a good thing; TPP is not. Every time you use the word “trade” in association with the TPP, you are helping the other side. “Trade” is a propaganda word. It short-circuits thinking. People hear “trade” and the brain stops working. People think, “Of course, trade is good.” And that ends the discussion. Calling TPP a “trade” agreement lets the pro-TPP people argue that TPP is about trade instead of what it is really about. It diverts attention from the real problem. It enables advocates to say things like, “95 percent of the world lives outside the U.S.” as if that has anything to do with TPP. It lets them say, “We know that exports support American jobs” to sell a corporate rights agreement. It enables them to say nonsense like this about […]

Recent updates

Czech Agriculture – using CAP for agroecology?

May 24, 2015 ARC

Czech Republic is the European Union country with the highest share of arable land, around 38% of its surface. Despite this fact, recent trends give clear evidence for an enormous decrease of agricultural land due to the expansion of urbanization and industrialization plans across the country. However the reformed Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the European Union (EU) could potentially push Czech Republic to promote an environmentally and socially sustainable agriculture. The process of land degradation in Czech Republic has its roots in the agricultural land expropriations of the 1950s done by the communist regime. During that time agricultural policy focused mostly on the large-scale consolidation of farmlands as well as on highly intensive methods of production through the use of agrochemicals without consideration of potential environmental risks.  In light of the „Velvet revolution“ in 1989 the political and economic changes gave rise various agricultural currents, from agroindustry to organic farming. Already in 1990 the Ministry for Agriculture established its own department for „alternative agriculture“, handing out Governmental support in form of direct subsidies to […]

Latest from EU Member States

400m: the height of unfairness in Wales?

April 28, 2015 ARC

A group of Welsh hill farmers has successfully challenged a deeply unpopular ten-fold differential in proposed Basic Payment rates for upland. Less than a week before Christmas, the Welsh Assembly stepped back from a judicial review of its November decision to fix Basic Payments (BPS) at EUR 20/hectare above the 400-metre contour, compared to EUR 200/hectare below it. Ad hoc hill farmers’ group Fairness For The Uplands (FFTU) had secured a court hearing into what spokesman Tony Davies told journalists had become a “fiasco.” Farmers’ concerns over how the moorland line was to be fixed had not been understood, according to the FFTU, which advocates a fairer system based on productivity. Working with a landscape that can rise from sea level to 1,000 metres within tens of kilometres, Welsh hill farmers do not live by contour lines, even if it would have suited payment agency staff for them to do so. For the Welsh Assembly, the choice of a contour line avoids endless arguments about how to classify and support agricultural activity or disallow agricultural […]