Organisations we regularly feature on our site
Sebastian Lakner assesses the current, rapidly changing situation of agri-food trade and policies. How is the war impacting on agri-food supplies, and what are the responses at EU and national level? This opinion piece is an English language update of an earlier German post on the agricultural economist’s blog.  […]
After âorganic,â ânon-GMO,â or even âpalm-oil free,â there may be a new label coming to products for EU consumers: âDeforestation-free.â But might there be unintended consequences for some of the worldâs poorest smallholders, who also happen to be those least responsible for climate breakdown? Ashley Parsons and Oliver Moore report. […]
Here is the full text of Agroecology Europe’s Barcelona Letter on Agroecology. Policy and investments, inclusion and participation, rural-urban connections, pricing, breeding, technology and transition all feature in this call out for a different approach to how we the people do farming, land and food. […]
What is the scale and impact of pesticides in agri-food? Where is power expressed, and what are the costs associated with the use of these agri-industrial inputs? A new concept note and policy brief throws some light on the topic. Op-Ed by Le BASIC â Christophe Alliot, Sylvain Ly CCFD-Terre Solidaire â Maureen Jorand Pollinis â Nicolas Larmaan PAN-Europe â Martin Dermine and CEO â Hans Vanscharen. […]
As COP26 gets underway, now is the time for the world to kick its addiction to synthetic N fertilisers and urgently transition to farming without fossil fuels and chemicals. A brief by Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP), GRAIN and Greenpeace International. […]
The food environment, a shift towards vegetables, and true cost true prices. There are the themes our colleagues in the Dutch Food Transition Coalition focused on in a submission on sustainable food systems in the EU. You can read an adapted version of the Dutch submission below, written by Willem Lageweg (director) Joost de Jong (strategic advisor) Dutch Food Transition Coalition. […]
Since the release of the Farm to Fork strategy, the Commission has faced a considerable amount of criticism, which generally cites the potential economic and food security impacts of F2F. Here IDDRI experts analyse the methodological limitations underlying this criticism and shows that a more systemic approach instead reinforce the relevance, coherence and realism of the Commissionâs strategy. […]
The EUâs Farm to Fork Strategy wonât be realised unless policy goes beyond voluntary measures to gear food environments to promote truly sustainable diets. Participants in the EU Food Policy Coalition share their vision for improving food environments. Op-ed by Frank Mechielsen from Feedback Global and Madeleine Coste from Slow Food Europe. […]
âShould agricultural subsidies go to labour not land?â Â This question was up for discussion at a meeting hosted by ARC2020 in Summer 2021. Area based payments are absolutely central to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) yet they have a range of negative impacts and act as a barrier to progressive change. […]
The Farm to Fork strategy is having an impact – and the forces of business-as-usual aren’t happy. Here Camille Perrin (BEUC), Nick Jacobs (IPES-Food) and Nina Holland (CEO) express their concerns about studies and corporate-led events “based on models which are ill-suited to evaluating the impacts of transforming our food systems.” Further, the authors point to how inappropriate these studies and events are when assessing the Farm to Fork Strategy itself. […]
Seeds for hope were sown this summer at the Seeds4all seminar, when cereal farmers and breeders from several countries gathered on the island of Pellworm in July to discuss the future of local organic seed production. Off the German coast in the North Sea, Pellworm faces its own challenges as an island below sea level. In this weirdly rainy and burning summer, it was a fitting location for talk of sustainability and resilience. Report by Seeds4all. […]
To mark the publication of the Meat Atlas 2021, we will republish a selection of our favourite articles. Here, Lisa Tostado introduces the Atlas, with a big picture take on changes in meat production and consumption in recent decades. The MEAT ATLAS 2021 is jointly published by Heinrich Böll Stiftung, Berlin, Germany Friends of the Earth Europe, Brussels, Belgium Bund fĂŒr Umwelt und Naturschutz, Berlin, Germany. […]
ARC2020’s Oliver Moore spoke to JOCECA – the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Environment and Climate Action – a Committee in the Irish Parliament. This comes just as the CAP trilogues start to finish, and as the Irish Parliament (DĂĄil) approves an ambitious Climate Bill which aims for 50% reduction in emissions by 2030. Below is a transcript of what he said. A longer version of an accompanying paper is also in the article.  […]
Why should farmers consider community, cooperative approaches? What are the benefits to doing so – and what happens when more individualistic approaches are taken instead? In the first of our occasional contributions from Patrick Worms, this testing topic is grappled with. Patrick Worms trained as a molecular geneticist and is the Senior Science Policy Advisor of World Agroforestry (ICRAF) and the President of the European Agroforestry Federation. These rants however, are 100% Patrick’s own personal opinion, and are not necessarily the views of any of the organisations he works for or represents. […]
Justice Pesticides is an organisation that compiles a worldwide database of pesticide litigation. Here we share two articles from Justice Pesticides’ March newsletter. The first introduces a recently published brochure on court cases involving neonicotinoid pesticides, and the second outlines the return of neonicotinoids to sugar beet fields in France. […]
Agricultural and Rural Convention