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We’re back on Shane Casey’s farm in Co. Clare, Ireland, where winter is an active period of herding livestock that are outwintered amidst the limestone pavements of The Burren. There’s decisions to be made about when to bring ewes inside to lamb, and cows home to calve. Considerations of animal welfare, economic viability, and conservation grazing are all factors in determining when the time is right. […] -
The Soup & Talk 2022 good food and good farming slam is happening via Zoom on Saturday, January 22nd from 17:00 to 20:00 CET.  The much-loved Soup and Talk event traditionally takes place at the Heinrich-Böll-Foundation, Berlin, with inspiring agri-food initiatives and hot soup welcoming hundreds of freezing demonstrators in out of the cold after Europe’s biggest protest for a better food system. […] -
After three action-packed days, the Oxford Real Farming Conference 2022 ended on a positive note, forging hope from solidarity. With powerful takeaways on diversity and knowledge sharing, there was much to be optimistic about thanks to contributions from a multifarious community of kindred spirits and a vibrant youth element. Ursula Billington reports. […] -
Marion and Benjamin are pig and dairy farmers on a community funded farm in Brittany, France. Agricultural engineers by training, they have reverse engineered the process of farming to make sure they get to take time off and make a decent living. In part 1 of a fascinating conversation, ValĂ©rie Geslin, project coordinator for Nos Campagnes en RĂ©silience, unpacks their experiments in rural resilience. […] -
What lessons can we learn from the plucky parakeet? How will we navigate this strange and beautiful world in the year ahead? From Seeds4All to Soup and Talk, from rural action to diverse diversification, ARC has a plan. Come, join in. […] -
How has Ireland used the flexibility of the CAP legal framework post-2022 to design a fairer CAP Strategic Plan? A new policy analysis, researched and written by Matteo Metta for the Left group in the European Parliament (GUE), assesses fairness in Ireland’s CAP submission in a number of ways, while making a proposal for a way forward to assess CAP spending with more coherence – a unique beneficiary code for all CAP recipients. […] -
The New Year gets off to an exciting start with the Oxford Real Farming Conference on January 5th-7th 2022. Back online this year, the conference has added social justice strings to its bow with new partners that focus on land rights and equality. As well as the traditional menu of sessions on sustainable farming practices and policy, food sovereignty and supply chains, the event will bring in indigenous perspectives from around the globe. Ursula Billington reports on what not to miss. […] -
The success of the European Citizens’ Initiative “Save bees and farmers” in 2021 was a historic result in the journey to reduce synthetic pesticides, restore biodiversity on farmland and support farmers to transition to agroecology. If the initiative is accepted by the Commission, the Commission will have to analyse and respond to the citizens’ requests. This article originally appeared in Justice Pesticides’ December newsletter. […] -
Today we launch a report on the CAP Strategic Plans process, as it has unfolded throughout 2021. The full document includes an overview, an analysis of the initial Commission recommendations, analyses of aspects of CAP in Germany (Green Architecture), Bulgaria (High Nature Value) Poland, Italy, precision farming, crop rotations, capping, and finally CAP and EU relations to third countries. Â […]
