Articles by ARC

Introduction The European Union is now reviewing its Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) post 2013. This new Policy will be implemented for seven years. Within these seven years ARC foresees very important changes that will become the basis for the CAP until 2020. The European Commission has already started the legislative work with the European Parliament in tow. Why should you care? Academics have established that European-level regulations affect about 70% of national legislation. Furthermore the Common Agriculture Policy is the main European budget post. The CAP sets the direction of the European Agriculture ship for the next 7 years. If you work in agriculture it will affect your sales, your costs, your subsidies and most definitely the way you work. And even if you do not work in agriculture, we all need to feed, to drink. Every citizen eats bread or cereals for breakfast, drink milk and juice. We all depend on agriculture for our Sunday barbecue and our veggie day. Rules and regulations thought up by the European policy-makers will, one way or the […]

  On 16 November 2010, ARC submitted its own proposals for a reform of European Agriculture and Rural Development Policies to the European Commission and other EU institutions.  The document, entitled “A Communication from Civil Society on the future of Agricultural and Rural Policy” is a product of a six month process involving consultations, conferences and negotiations between NGOs from across Europe. It calls for a radical review of policies for both agriculture and rural development.  We propose that policies from 2014 onwards should embrace: A paradigm shift in agriculture and in food systems, from the existing dominant industrial–style farming and centralised food industry to sustainable farming everywhere and a diversified pattern of regional and local production and processing of food, with closer connections between farmers and consumers, and high care for public health, environment and animal welfare. An economic, social and environmental renaissance of rural areas, building upon the strength and diversity of communities, cultures and resources, linked effectively to place-based territorial development and honouring the EU’s commitment to social, economic and territorial cohesion. […]

The ARC started with a call for action which was signed up to by a number of supporting civil society organisations and networks on 26 April 2010. The idea is to run this process for at least a year during the start-up phase of reforms of European policies, focussing on the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) and related fields. Our initiative is complementary to that of the European Commission, which has launched a public debate and a website on CAP reform. However, that debate is supposed to end in June and will be concluded with a conference in mid July 2010. We suggest continuing discussions beyond this date. We envisage drawing first conclusions of the ARC in July in order to contribute to the conference of the Commission, but to continue working on a common message to be adopted in October this year. The idea is to deliver a “communication of European civil society to the European institutions”, to be available when the Commission adopts its Communication to the Parliament and the Council of Ministers. You […]