Latest from EU Member States

Slashing Space for Nature? Ireland Backsliding on CAP basics

Cutting space for nature on farms, from its own proposed level of 5% to just 4%, is the most brutal of adjustments mooted by the Department of  Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) in one of the final CAP consultations last Thursday.  A list of five for the most part unambitious eco-schemes has also been announced, which will do little to move Irish agriculture towards a more environmentally sustainable place.  […]

Latest from Brussels

Save Bees and Farmers! – European Citizens’ Initiative Must Reach 1 Million Signatures by September 30th

The European Citizens’ Initiative ‘Save Bees and Farmers!’ alliance – a network of civil society organisations in agriculture, health and environmental protection – is calling on the European Commission to propose legislation to phase out synthetic pesticides by 2035, to restore biodiversity, and to support farmers in the transition. […]

Main stories

UK | Pond Life Revives Hope for On-Farm Wildlife 

Pond restoration yields dramatic results for nature. Seedbanks, dormant for 150 years, spring back to life; rare indigenous plants return within months. Invertebrate populations explode, significant for severely declining freshwater biodiversity. Insect chimneys attract huge numbers of birdlife and twice the species normally seen in the area. Ursula Billington reports on a farmer-inspired project to restore pondlife in Norfolk, UK. […]

Main stories

The True Cost of Britain’s Addiction to Factory-Farmed Chicken

The intensive poultry industry in the UK has expanded in recent decades, becoming more akin to the USA’s mega farms. Investigating how intensive poultry units have multiplied across certain parts of the UK, Alison Caffyn discovered that the poultry industry has taken advantage of weak regulatory and planning regimes to scale up the lucrative business.  […]

Latest from Brussels

Cut The Crap, Withdraw The CAP!

Climate striker Sommer Ackerman became active in protests for a better CAP in October 2020.  She combines activism at EU level in the WithdrawTheCAP campaign with activism at national level to make agri-food policy change in Finland. […]

Latest from EU Member States

Ireland | Forty Shades Of Greenwashing? – Part 1

Ireland’s current agri-food strategy places environmental protection and economic competitiveness on an equal footing. But can ambitions for growth be squared with the state’s duty to protect the environment? In the first of a two-part series, Alison Brogan investigates the realities of sustainable growth on the Emerald Isle. […]

Main stories

EU Citizen Survey Indicates Gene Drive Moratorium Support

The first cross-country EU citizens opinion poll on gene drives has found that a majority of respondents supports the call for a global moratorium on release of Gene Drive Organisms and agrees that a global consensus is needed before any gene drive could take place. The representative survey which polled 8,826 citizens from eight EU countries was conducted by international market research institute YouGov. […]

Latest from Brussels

The Common Agriculture Policy and Sustainable Farming: A statement by scientists (December 2020)

40 scientific experts have come together today to release a paper on the role CAP plays in trying to make farming sustainable. Below we republish the summary of this paper, and provide a link to download the paper in full. Led by Guy Pe’er, and including our own Matteo Metta, the paper is critical of both the initial CAP proposal by the Commission from 2018, and more critical again of the positions taken by the Council and Parliament in October 2020. Important reading in the current trilogue context. […]

Latest from Brussels

CAP, Interrupted – So Withdraw the CAP!

As trilogues to decide the future of CAP progress behind closed doors, the business-as-usual lobby is fighting its corner with some level of exacerbation. They are annoyed with the Commission, with the scientific community, and with young people in the decision-making corridors. Fridays for Future and a host of civil society stakeholders want the Commission to Withdraw the CAP, and the case for doing just this is mounting, as the chasm between the European Green Deal and CAP widens. […]

Latest from Brussels

MFF – Increased EU Budget for Biodiversity and More

Biodiversity, organic farming, young farmers and other areas received a welcome financial boost from the EU institutions on Tuesday (10th November).  The European Parliament’s negotiating team and the German Presidency of the Council reached agreement on the forthcoming Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), the EU’s budget for 2021 – 2027.  […]