ARC NEWSFLASH February 2012

This month has seen a number of new features for our website. Firstly, your organisation can now become a Friend of the ARC. Friends of the ARC are organisations who may not have signed our Communication, but are interested or engaged in a profound reform of the Common Agricultural Policy, support the work of ARC and want to help us build a strong voice. Don’t hesitate to get in touch if you want to add your organisation to the list and embark on the ARC! Secondly, we have started developing a series of pages known as Voices for Change…you can read more on this below. Finally, we also have a new video on our homepage: check it out!

ARC has welcomed a number of guests bloggers on our site this month, such as this piece from BirdLife Europe. We have also provided articles for others, see for example an article about our correspondents posted on the European Social Journalism website. If you want to write an article for us, please get in touch with the Communications team! We look forward to your contribution.

Kate Mann
communication@arc2020.eu

Last month in Brussels

Two changes have been made to the rapporteurs/shadows working on CAP reform. MEP Capoulas Santos has been replaced as shadow on single CMO and Horizontal Regulation by Iratxe Garcia Perez (ES, S&D) and Wojciech Olejniczak (PL, S&D) respectively. Find a list of all rapporteurs and shadows here. February also saw decisions being reached on the Food Aid scheme and the European Milk Package, with voting taking place on February 15th. You can read the reaction of our signatory, theEuropean Milk Board here. Later in the month the Council adopted a regulation aiming to improve the functioning of the EU milk sector. At the largest organic fair in Europe, Biofach, Agriculture Commissioner Cioloş announced a new organic trade agreement between the US and the EU. On February 28th, the EU Parliament Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development met in Brussels. At this meeting, two briefing notes were presented. The first on ‘Rural Development and territorial cohesion in the new CAP‘, presented by Professor Jan Douwe van der Ploeg. The second on ‘the New direct payments scheme: targeting and redistribution in the future CAP‘, presented by Professor Alan Swinbank. Animal welfare and biodiversity were also on the agenda. Find out about all the latest developments in Brussels here.

NEW feature on ARC website:

Voices for Change

• Do you have a story that supports an alternative vision for the CAP?

• Do you want to share it with a pan-European network?

ARC2020 is developing a new website feature that will give you a chance to tell your story and present an alternative voice for farming, food and rural development in Europe.

Upcoming EU events 

7.03.2012
Enhancing innovation and the delivery of research in EU agriculture
Brussels

19.03.2012
Agriculture and Fisheries Council Meeting
Brussels

19.03.2012
COMAGRI Meeting
Brussels

20.03.2012
EESC: The Common Agricultural Policy – 50 years … and a lifetime ahead!
Brussels

27.03.2012
COMAGRI Meeting
Brussels

Upcoming public events

07.03.2012
ECVC: CAP and Food Sovereignty Brussels

08.03.2012 – 09.03.2012
Is the CAP rising to its challenges? Frankfurt

12.03.2012 – 14.03.2012
Outlook for Agriculture 2012 London

19.03.2012 – 20.03.2012
7th European Annual Symposium EU Funds Berlin

20.03.2012
Pesticide Action Week begins

20.03.2012
Ensuring Fair Food and Farming for the Future Brussels

27.03.2012 – 28.03.2012
6th Annual European Nutrition and Lifestyle Conference Brussels

27.03.2012
5th Forum for the Future of Agriculture Brussels

Interview with…

Tracy Worcester

Environmental campaigner and director of the film Pig Business talks to ARC2020

“We as consumers have to use our power, in our purse, to buy food from small-scale farmers, and that will encourage better democracy because we stop these massive factory farms dictating the rules of our lives”

You can find the full interview here