ARC Newsflash – April 2014

Dear friends and supporters,
As Europe has thawed, the next months will be very exciting for our 2000m² project. Last Sunday, we planted seeds on the field in Berlin, and are looking forward to growing both the representation of the global situation, and the project itself.  More on that below.

A few other highlights from March on ARC2020.eu:

Shirin Kiamanesh – communication@arc2020.eu
Communications Manager
Oliver Moore – oliver@arc2020.eu

EU Correspondent

Planting the global field

On Sunday, March 30th, a group of us gathered on the SpeiseGut farm, on the Havel river in the west of Berlin, to plant the seeds that will bring the newest 2000m² field to life.We planted a scaled down representation of the global situation. Globally, the most common crops are wheat (16.6%), maize (13%) and rice (12.4%); we represented that on our field, making adjustments for the German climate, for example switching out rice for other grains, and exchanging most of the soy for Lupine.

We made a day of planting the seeds, turning it into a little garden party : we were vary happy with how many people turned up to help out on the field, and with the 19°C weather. Planting together made for fun work, and after the global field had been planted we shared soup and chatted in the sun about the next steps for this project.

See more from Sunday here.

What’s next for 2000m²
Over the next few months we will share updates from the 2000m² fields in Europe, and articles to keep the conversation going, on our blog.  In addition to the field in Berlin mentioned on the left, there are fields in Sweden and Greece – you can see an update from both at the bottom of this post.If you’d like to get involved, there are different ways. For example, our new field in Berlin needs people who would like to get their hands dirty to help it grow. Or maybe you would like to bring the conversation to a school to help the ideas grow,  using the 2000m² framework to encourage discussion about food waste, consumption, and the decisions we make every day on our plates. Our new 2000m² broschure “A conversation about your share of global food and land” can be downloaded here. We are also setting up a way for anyone interested to ‘adopt’ a couple of m² of our field in Berlin and will share details soon.

Get in touch with Carla Giardini:
carla@2000m2.eu

Featured issue: Seed Regulation

On Tuesday, March 11th, the EU Commission’s proposal for plant reproductive material law, or ‘seed regulation’, was rejected by a Parliament vote over concern that it would give too much power to the Commission.

The draft, which would have favoured a drastic loss of biodiversity, was rejected with 650 votes to 15.

Read the full story here

Upcoming Events and Policy Dates

April 1 // Feeding the 5000, Brussels
April 2 // Public Debate, Trade and Sustainability, Brussels
April 8 // Concluding Conference on Empowering Rural Staekholders, Brussels
April 8 // Policy Roundtable: Production on organic farms, Brussels
April 29 // IFOAM hearing on the Organic Regulation Review, Brussels

Find all events listed on ARC2020 here

Feeding Europe:
food sovereignty and agro-ecology

Addressing the broken food system, a new briefing and video from Friends of the Earth Europe demonstrates how people across Europe are re-organising their food supply chains- re-connecting producers and consumers and re-localising agriculture and food distribution in a sustainable way. This includes short supply chains, alternative food networks, local farming systems and direct sales.