Latest from EU Member States

UK | A People’s Food Policy

A silver lining in the Brexit cloud is that people can radically rethink how food, farming and the rural space operate in the UK. What will this mean for direct payments, for environmental regulations, for food security – and who will do the hard work of farming? Finally, is some of this blue sky thinking of interest to the rest of Europe? […]

Main stories

Growing Food in the Post-Truth Era

The global food system has been operating in post-truth mode for decades. Having constructed food scarcity as a justification for a second Green Revolution, Big Agriculture now employs its unethical marketing tactics to selling farmers “climate-smart” agriculture in the form of soils, seeds and chemicals. […]

Latest from Brussels

New EU Organic Regulation Agreed

A preliminary agreement has been reached after 20 months of trilogue negotiations between EU Commission, Council of Ministers and European Parliament for a new organic regulation. The main outstanding issues, which delayed agreement for so long have either been settled or deferred. Here’s what this means. […]

Latest from EU Member States

Ecological Focus Area in Germany: What Influences Farmers’ Decisions?

Catch crops (68%), fallow land (16.2%) and nitrogen fixing crops (11.8%) dominated ecological focus areas (EFAs) in Germany in 2015. Why is this? What influences farmers’ decisions on EFAs? One of the authors of a new peer reviewed publication on this topic, ARC2020 regular Sebastian Lackner, summarises the paper, in which he and colleagues interviewed a range of experts on the matter. […]

Events

A Mini Greek Odyssey with ARC2020 | #ERSG17

ARC2020’s Communications Director spend a week on the road in rural Greece recently, with force of nature Pavlos Georgiadis – farmer, food producer, film maker, campaigner, social innovator and community manager with the exciting new GROW Observatory. Here’s a snapshot of their trip. […]

Latest from EU Member States

Traditional Seed Rules – Oceans Apart

As we build towards the European Rural Sustainability Gathering (ERSG) in Greece, 1 7-20th May, we publish now an exclusive interview with Shannon McCabe of Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company. This interview was conducted at the Peliti Olympic Seed Festival, which took place in Drama Greece last month. Peliti are co-organisers of the ERSG. […]

Latest from EU Member States

Seeds of System Change | Peliti & Greece’s Olympic Spirit

In the build up to the Forum Synergies European Rural Sustainability Gathering 17-20th May, we continue our focus on grassroots initiatives in Greece. Here, we talk to Panagiotis Sainatoudis and Vasso Kanellopoulou. The chat happened at the 17th seed festival of Peliti and the first international Olympic Seed festival in Peliti, Drama, Greece 20-22 April. […]

Main stories

Make Soil Great Again!

As Earth Day approaches, it’s time to recommend some skin care for Mother Nature. Restoring soil fertility is one of humanity’s best options for making progress on three daunting challenges: Feeding everyone, weathering climate change and conserving biodiversity. […]

Latest from Brussels

EESC Glyphosate Debate as it Unfolded

The momentum behind the European Citizens’ initiative (ECI) to Ban Glyphosate (#BanGlyphosate) brought the campaign all the way to the corridors of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) in the EU quarter of Brussels Wednesday. Oliver Moore reports. […]

Latest from Brussels

EESC Meeting on #BanGlyphosate – Livestream

A European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) has recently been launched to call on European Commission to propose a ban on glyphosate-based herbicides, “exposure to which has been linked to cancer in humans, and has led to ecosystems degradation” according to the ECI organisers. You can follow the debate live tomorrow, which includes Oliver Moore of ARC2020, at 11.30 CEST – Brussels time). […]