2024 - Page 2 of 5 - Agricultural and Rural Convention

Feeding Ourselves 2024 – A Food Revolution Starts With Seed!

April 16, 2024 Adèle Pautrat

Our Seeds4All project was back in Ireland in March to be part of Feeding Ourselves 2024. We are inheritors of a genetic commons that we have to protect. While working on the ground we need to be vigilant about what is happening at legal level – and work together. In partnership with the Irish Seed Savers Association, Seeds4All brought a European perspective to Cloughjordan, Co. Tipperary. Adèle Pautrat reports. […]

Parliament Pushes Full Steam Ahead to Dismantle CAP’s Green Rules

April 12, 2024 Natasha Foote

The European Parliament has given its blessing to a fast-track approval process to push through a proposal aimed at simplifying the EU’s farming subsidy programme, which effectively guts the policy of its environmental requirements. Natasha Foote reports. […]

Goodbye Green and Fair, Hello Fortress Europe – Eco Ambitions dropped from EU leaders’ draft 5-year plan

April 10, 2024 Oliver Moore

It’s back to the future as the EU’s green ambitions face the chopping block, with priorities shifting to security and competition. That’s according to the European Council’s vision for the next 5 years, as revealed in a leaked internal draft of EU leaders’ ‘strategic agenda’. Oliver Moore and Natasha Foote have the details, including the leaked document itself. […]

Feeding Ourselves 2024 – Unlocking Local Food Economies

April 4, 2024 Oliver Moore

The Feeding Ourselves gathering 2024 saw a diverse range of people and topics over four days in the Irish midlands. From policy analysis to deep listening, tactile workshops to building bridges the four days were a full spectrum of experiences. Here we summarise Friday, a local food economies experience for activists, enablers and organisers in this area. So what’s needed, and what can be done to help embed and amplify agroecological local food provisioning by communities, for communities? Oliver Moore reports. […]

Seven things I learned at Feeding Ourselves 2024

April 2, 2024 Oliver Moore

Sometimes things are simple and sometimes they are complicated. In the Irish midlands, from 21-24th March, people representing dozens of organisations involved in agri-food, came together to work together on how we feed ourselves. here’s sever things I learned at this year’s event. […]

“We must deliver” – The Future of Agricultural Transition in Europe

March 29, 2024 ARC

Can the EU achieve the urgently needed re-construction of the CAP? ARC2020’s president Hannes Lorenzen, on the causes of European farmers’ protests, the EU’s panic deconstruction of farm policies, and why civil society must deliver now.
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EU’s Nature Restoration Law at Critical Juncture after Pushback by Member States

March 25, 2024 Natasha Foote

The EU’s Nature Restoration Law has suffered yet another set back after a number of EU countries refused to greenlight the final shape of the negotiated law – something that both the Commission and campaign groups warn risks undermining the EU’s international credibility. Natasha Foote reports. […]

Protests and Love – France’s Farmer Organisations, Demonstrations and Social Alliances

March 25, 2024 Hannes Lorenzen

Jean-Marc Desfilhes and Hannes Lorenzen present a history of French farmers’ associations and social alliances in light of the recent demonstrations and associated political reactions. They propose: Now is the time to mobilise love and protest to stop the current agricultural policy rollback. […]

EU CAPitulates on Green Farming Measures

March 20, 2024 Natasha Foote

The European Commission has officially put forward plans to slash environmental measures in the EU’s farming subsidy programme and offer up more power to member states in deciding the future course of the policy. Natasha Foote reports. […]

Sustainable Food Systems | Public Canteens – A Tool for Regional Resilience

March 19, 2024 ARC

Manger Demain (Eating Tomorrow) is a strategy and an organisation in Wallonia, Belgium aiming to coordinate, link and facilitate local and regional initiatives engaged in sustainable food. The work of Manger Demain was one of many inspiring examples presented at the Marburg Sustainable Food Systems gathering co-hosted by ARC2020, kollektiv von MORGEN and the Arbeitsgemeinschaft bauerliche Landwirtschaft last November as part of the Rural Europe Takes Action – Germany project […]

Letter From The Farm | Cooking With The Lights Off – Ingredients of Rural Resilience

March 13, 2024 Matteo Metta

We’re back on Cortijo El Manzano in Campotéjar, rural Andalusia, with another letter from ARC2020’s Matteo Metta. This agroecological farm has been building resilience collectively since 1986. After his experience living and volunteering on the farm in February, Matteo reflects on what El Manzano can teach us about some key ingredients of rural resilience: housing, labour and energy […]

Green CAP on the Chopping Block – Commission to Cut CAP’s Environmental Ambitions with no Impact Assessment

March 13, 2024 Natasha Foote

The European Commission plans to shift the EU’s farming subsidy programme from mandatory requirements towards a more ‘voluntary’ approach, proposing to slash or weaken a range of environmental measures, according to a leak of the EU executive’s plans. […]

Letter From The Farm | A Flamenco Approach to Rural Resilience

March 8, 2024 Matteo Metta

In February, ARC2020’s Matteo Metta visited and worked on El Manzano, a farm deeply rooted in the living history of rural Andalusia, so rich in nuances, contrasts, and emotions, as expressed in the notes of flamenco and words of poets like Federico García Lorca. Farms like El Manzano are yet another example of a rural bridge between sustainable agri and food systems. […]

Monitoring, Case-by-Case Assessments Recommended for new GMOs by French Health & Safety Agency (ANSES)

March 7, 2024 Oliver Moore

“Given the technical, economic and social uncertainties identified in this report and the controversies raised by the development of NTG-derived plants, the Working Group recommends that a system be set up to monitor NTG plants and products derived from them…an assessment of the risks…should be carried out on a case-by-case basis”. […]

Don’t Dismantle CAP’s Green Rules say 330 European Organisations

March 6, 2024 Oliver Moore

“The Commission is about to dismantle conditionality requirements that are based on unequivocal scientific evidence, and which it has explicitly acknowledged as being essential tools to address current climate, environmental, and biodiversity issues.” That’s according to a large number of organisations who have the EU Commission to urge it to reconsider the loosening of the CAP’s green architecture. […]