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 […]

Main stories

Does peasantry pay the price for a more European Turkey?

By Asutay Meriç, Agrobiodiversity Campaign Intern at Eco Ruralis Following a contentious and  controversial election in Turkey politicians seem to continuously highlight that Turkey is Europe’s first and the World’s 7th largest agricultural producer. Roughly 80% of the hazelnut production, and most  of the fruit and veg that is exported into the EU comes from Turkey. These figures sound impressive. However, for the last decade Turkish peasantry which holds nearly two-thirds of the Turkish farms has been the poorest segment of the society. Their political, economical and cultural rights are constantly violated by the ruling Government itself. According to the Turkish National Institute of Statistics (TNIS) (pdf), agriculture makes up 8,4% of the national income and 25 % of the employment. Its 38.6 million hectares of utilized agricultural land has a segmented structure where an average plot size has around 5 hectares. Turkey, an EU candidate country for more than 15 years, has a very large utilized agricultural areas compared to other European countries. Having such a strong rural base, the country has always been […]

Recent updates

Visiting the Vine and Wine World of Moldova

Written By:  Derek Freitas, Eco Ruralis Staff The Republic of Moldova is the 22nd largest wine-producing country in the world. For such a small country, it certainly grows a lot of grapes. Agritourism is on the rise and so is the market for its wines all across Europe but are there enough economic opportunities for small-scale producers? And how does the export focus of the national government affect the genetic diversity of grapes? Recently, Eco Ruralis staff made a visit to find out more. The land of the Republic of Moldova has a long and rich history of grape and wine production dating back to the Dacian times. The first grape vines were here around 7,000 BCE and for 5,000 years wine has been made – so, they are pretty good at it! Generations and generations of people living in the countryside have produced wine for family consumption and local trade which is still the case today. There are 4 historical wine regions: Valul lui Traian (south west), Stefan Voda (south east), Codru (central), and […]

Latest from EU Member States

250,000 people protest against TTIP in Berlin

250,000 took it to the streets on 10. october in Berlin for a huge ‘Stop TTIP and CETA – For a Fair World Trade!’ demonstration. Together many people from all walks of life protested against the free trade agreements between the EU and the US and Canada. […]

Latest from Brussels

CAP Webinar with Samuel Féret – online now!

+++++UPDATE+++++ In case you missed it or you’d like to reCAP: Watch the webinar ‘Greening or Green-Washing?’ hosted by ARC2020’s Samuel Féret here: By loading the video, you agree to YouTube’s privacy policy.Learn more Load video Always unblock YouTube Guest article by Michaela Skodova Groupe de Bruges ARC2020’s Samuel Feret will deliver a webinar 30 minute CAP Webinars on Tue, Sep 29, 2015 11:30 AM – 12:30 PM BST.  To register, please follow this link. Feret’s topic is “CAP: greening or green-washing?”.  Feret, Groupe de Bruges president is one of the authors for the CAP Pro course. Each month experts will give a 30 minute webinar on one of the current issues in the implementation of the CAP. Check the ‘Can EU CAP it?’ platform for more information and sign up for the next one. All aspects of the platform are free. Get your CAP on and join us! The platform consists of five parts: CAP Game, CAP Basic videos, CAP Pro course, CAP Webinars & CAP Forums. We would like to raise your attention […]