Natasha is a freelance journalist, podcaster and moderator specialising in EU agrifood policy. She previously worked as an agrifood journalist with the EU media EURACTIV, and before that spent several years working on farms around Europe to learn more about the realities for farmers on the ground. Natasha holds a Master’s degree in Environment, Development and Policy with distinction from the University of Sussex, where she worked on food issues and alternative approaches to food production.
As crisis follows crisis, more and more people go hungry across the globe, while agri-food corporations ring up record profits. It’s an alarming state of affairs – but it’s not inevitable. The tools to push back against corporate power are out there, finds the 2026 Agribusiness Atlas. What is needed is the political courage to use them. Natasha Foote digs in. […]
As the old adage goes, you are what you eat. But just how sustainable are our policymakers’ plates? As the EU (finally) publishes its long awaited plan to perfect public procurement, ARC2020’s Natasha Foote went into the belly of the beast – to DG AGRI’s canteen – to find out whether they’re putting their money where their mouth is (literally). […]
It’s nothing less than an agroecological revolution. And it’s led by women in the Global South, who are creating their own alternatives to toxic dependencies. Natasha Foote sits down with Swati Renduchintala, a researcher with farmer empowerment organisation Rythu Sadhikara Samstha, to understand how Andhra Pradesh’s Natural Farming movement has changed the lives of millions of Indian smallholders, and shows no signs of stopping. […]
The weather isn’t the only thing heating up over the next few months. Negotiations over the shapes of the EU’s farming subsidy programme will start firing on all cylinders in the second half of the year. Natasha Foote walks you through the latest from Brussels. […]
You can have your cake and eat it too, according to a leaked version of the EU’s upcoming livestock strategy, which leans on technofixes to address our biggest environmental and climate challenges while shying away from some of the meatier questions on reduction of livestock numbers. ARC2020’s Natasha Foote breaks down the key takeaways from the draft. […]
After years of intense lobbying, negotiation, and semantic gymnastics, it’s official. Europe is set to open its farm gates and plates to new genetic technologies, without the guardrails of labelling, monitoring, or liability. Natasha Foote breaks down exactly what this means and what’s next. […]
As EU lawmakers prepare to rewrite rules governing the production, exchange and sale of seeds, two opposing worlds collide. In one, seeds are intellectual property, carefully regulated and protected as engines of innovation. In the other, they are living commons, saved, exchanged and adapted by farmers across generations. To dig into the seedy underbelly of the agrifood world, ARC2020’s Natasha Foote travelled between two major seed gatherings held just days (but worlds) apart, each offering a radically different vision of the future. […]
The PFAS panic has seen us eye everything from non-stick pans to takeaway packaging with suspicion. But what if one of the most direct routes of exposure to these ‘forever chemicals’ is not in the kitchen cupboard, but on our plates? Here ARC2020’s Natasha Foote lifts the lid on PFAS pesticides and how new pesticide plans in the EU’s regulatory pipeline could open doors to ‘forever chemicals’ that can’t be closed. […]
In a few short weeks, the European Parliament will have the power to open Europe’s farmgates and plates to new genetic technologies, without the guardrails of labelling, monitoring, or liability. But in Brussels, an eleventh-hour battle is brewing. So is this game, set and match? Or is there still something to play for? Natasha Foote brings you the latest from Brussels. […]
April 21st will be the next (and perhaps final) milestone meeting for negotiators trying to seal a deal on the overhaul of the EU’s seed legislation. On the very same day, the Council is to vote on the EU’s proposal to loosen the rules around new genetic technologies. For the Seeds4All project, Natasha Foote explains what’s at stake in these two crucial files. […]
Who milks the cows when the farmers fall sick? There is only one answer to that question for most: the farmers, or their families. But it is a very different story in two European countries—and while right now, access to sick leave and holidays is determined by postcode, this could soon start to change. Here, ARC2020’s Natasha Foote digs into how these farm relief services work in practice and what the ingredients for success look like for other countries that want to set up similar services for their farmers. […]
Two years after a wave of farmer protests swept across Europe, the political response that dismantled key environmental measures in the EU’s most expensive policy at breakneck speed has left an indelible mark on decision-making in Brussels. In this investigation, we trace the closed-door discussions via exclusive interviews and insights that led to the rapid rewriting of EU farm policy at the height of the so-called farming ‘crisis’ and dig into the moment that broke new ground for EU policymaking. Natasha Foote reports. […]
The EU’s watchdog is ready for the fight over fairness in the EU’s future farming policy just as NGOs launch another round of legal scrutiny over the Commission’s conduct in the handling of the next Common Agricultural Policy. […]
Lawyers have declared it unlawful. The EU’s watchdog has found maladministration. And yet it’s full steam ahead for the EU’s simplification train – or ‘omnibus’, to be more precise. As one simplification chapter closes, another opens. What is going on, and what does this mean going forward? Natasha Foote brings you the latest in the legal wrangle around the EU’s simplification saga. […]
Welcome to the Year of the CAP — but just how “common” will the EU’s next agricultural policy be? Could pensioners be excluded from direct payments? And will farmers finally get a day off? Meanwhile EU leaders are freewheeling in the direction of free-trade deals. We may remember 2026 as the year the floodgates were opened to new genetic technologies. Plus the future of seeds is at stake, with upcoming trilogues that will make or break the proposed overhaul of the EU’s Seed Law. But first, there’s a battle looming over the budget. Natasha Foote reports on a decisive year ahead for EU policy. […]
Agricultural and Rural Convention
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