Year: 2015

Latest from EU Member States

Fresh recruits for Growing Livelihoods

October 4, 2015 Peter Crosskey

The UK’s Growing Livelihoods scheme to foster smaller-scale food growing has added a further five projects to the pilot phase it launched last year. The new arrivals in the Growing Livelihoods family are Bristol’s Beacon Farms, the Cwm Harry Cultivate group in south Wales, Cloughmills Community Action Team in Northern Ireland, the Cornish Tamar Grow Local group and Falkland Small Growers in Fife. The Tamar Grow Local group will convert an agricultural building into a shared packhouse, meeting space and office. This will extend the existing support for new market gardeners, who will be able to work together and establish new routes to market. With the Falkland Estate earning organic certification in May this year, two new businesses have been set up to establish a network of local growers. Falkland Kitchen Farm and Meadowsweet Organics are part of a plan to share equipment and services such as marketing organic crops. Cloughmills Community Action Team is building a geodesic dome, like the Eden Project, in which hydroponic salad crops will be grown, alongside mushrooms raised on […]

Latest from Brussels

CAP Webinar with Samuel Féret – online now!

September 21, 2015 ARC

+++++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 […]

Latest from Brussels

Commission proposes replacing ISDS with more of the same

September 16, 2015 Oliver Moore

UPDATED 17/09/2015 at 12.42 CET (with US Chamber of Commerce information in final paragraph) Critics have rounded on yet another fudge by the EU Commission  on the highly controversial ISDS  – Investor State Dispute Settlement – element of TTIP – the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. Today at midday, the Commission announced “a new Investment Court System which would replace the ISDS mechanism in all on-going and future EU investment negotiations.” It “has approved its proposal for a new and transparent system for resolving disputes between investors and states – the Investment Court System. This new system would replace the existing investor-to-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanism in all ongoing and future EU investment negotiations, including the EU-US talks on a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).” The Commission’s First Vice-President Frans Timmermans said  “With our proposals for a new Investment Court System, we are breaking new ground. The new Investment Court System will be composed of fully qualified judges, proceedings will be transparent, and cases will be decided on the basis of clear rules. With this new […]

Latest from key partners

Nourish Scotland Conference explores a Citizens’ Agricultural Policy

September 15, 2015 Oliver Moore

What would people–centred food governance look like? This is the crucial question to be addressed in Edinburgh, Scotland 22-23rd October. BOOK NOW Nourish Scotland, in cooperation with ARC2020, will host “Towards a Citizens’ Agricultural Policy” an event which will gather citizens, farmers, civil society, and representatives from regions and cities to rethink the governance of food and farming policies in Europe and Scotland. According to Nourish Scotland “our food system is failing to support a healthy, well-nourished population, while driving dangerous climate change and destroying natural capital. The Common Agricultural Policy is a colossal public policy intervention, using 39% of the EU budget and shaping the farming policies of Member States. It could drive improvement in public health, rural economies, and sustainable food and farming; but it doesn’t. And it won’t until our food system is governed democratically for the common good.” Confirmed speakers Alyn Smith is a Scottish Member of the European Parliament & Member of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development. David Barnes is Chief Agricultural Officer for Scotland. Nora McKeon is […]

Latest from EU Member States

Retail Empires Pile into Eastern Europe with World Bank Loans

September 7, 2015 ARC

The Eastern European entrance of Lidl and Kaufland, supermarket retail chains owned by a German corporate group, were financed with loans from public money. According to an investigation by The Guardian, almost 900 million Euro of public funds coming from the World Bank and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) were injected to develop hundreds of supermarkets packed with cheap, imported food. This leaves peasants and other local food producers, largely ignored by these retailers, unable to compete. These public institutions, funded by taxpayers and owned by governments, have explicit mandates to increase local development in the countries where they spend their money. The World Bank also has an additional, specific mandate to reduce global poverty. An International Consortium of Investigative Journalists found that 1,000 World Bank projects approved between 2004 and 2013 forced 3.4 million people from their homes, grabbed their land, or damaged their livelihood. The banks claim that their funding for Lidl and Kaufland would create jobs, opening new markets for local producers and bringing “good quality, affordable food” to poor […]