Public places in France – schools, parks, forests, roadsides – are no longer treated with herbicides, while more restrictions are coming in in 2019. Senator Joel Labbé has been the driving force behind these restrictions. ARC2020 has worked with Labbé to help bring his work to the European stage. […]
The platform Pour une autre PAC (For Another Common Agricultural Policy) is a French inter-association body created for a common reflection and action on CAP reform. This article explains and critiques the French Agricultural Minister’s position on CAP. […]
33,000 citizens – including 160 tractor driving farmers – made their way through the winter streets of Berlin on Saturday to tell the world – food is political! #EssenIstPolitisch […]
The platform Pour une autre PAC (For Another Common Agricultural Policy) is a French inter-association body created for a common reflection and action regarding the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy. In this exclusive for ARC2020, platform coordinator Auréile Catallo introduces its history, its composition and its functioning. […]
There is lots of hype about digitisation in farming. There are important questions too, about ownership and power. What role for agroecology and the commons in this context? Vassilis Gkisakis and colleagues explored this topic at the Agroecology Europe forum in October. Here they outline their discussions. […]
Agroecology is commonly understood as a science, a movement, and a practice, jointly transforming agroecosystems to less fossil fuel dependent, more autonomous and more resilient farming systems. Agroecologic practices and research have evolved and are being applied around the globe. What unites these movements, what separates them? How is it different in Europe compared to Latin America? Is there a universal approach to agroecology? […]
UK Ag minister Micheal Gove has claimed Brexit is a golden opportunity to create an independent, public goods focused national agri-food policy. This policy position has been praised by many, from environmentalists to the NFU. However, is he speaking with a forked tongue? And if not, then what might this potentially radical rupture signal for the EU and CAP? […]
Agroecology is about more than just affordable, ecological techniques – meet Olga Alcaraz, one of the women leading the movement forward. […]
From 1st January, a series of changes in the Common Agriculture Policy have been in effect. Agreed on 12th December, the so-called Omnibus was entered into the official EU record on 29th December. These changes are variously described as simplifications or improvements. But are they? […]
The Yorkshire Dales is an upland area of Yorkshire, Northern England. Agriculture has been an integral part of the area’s culture and economy for thousands of years. A hill farm agricultural system is upheld here, with sheep as the primary livestock, although many have diversified into mixed beef systems, and dairy operations in the lower valleys. How has CAP – and its changes over time – impacted on this place and its people? […]
Relax and reflect over the holiday season – and see here for lots of ways to get involved with us for 2018 – from soil to AgTech, conservation tillage to farm hack – there are lots of topis to sink your teeth into with ARC for 2018. […]
Here Frank Armstrong ponders how different the rural west of Ireland was – and can be again – through the medium of food production. Family excursions, a mid century self-help co-op movement, which used horticulture as a vehicle for change, and the future of food production all feature. […]
‘Grass-fed’ is now widely used across the global market place for bovine products. It is loosely defined and can mean anything from 51% of the animal’s diet coming from grazed grass and forages to 100% fed on grass. ‘Grass-fed’ is now so common place that one must ask whether it retains any great value as product differentiation. Has ‘grass-fed’ seen its day? And how should sustainable food move forward? […]
CAP’s way to address diverse rural spaces under a broad policy umbrella has many shortcomings, including the discrimination against wood pastures as eligible land for direct payments. This impacts pastoralists and the landscape negatively. So will this be addressed by the new reform of the CAP? Or has something else emerged which might actually act as a tool for change? by Flora Sonkin. […]
Somewhere between convenience, efficiency, cost saving and a comprehensive EU surveillance mega state, the use of drones and other in-the-sky technologies for ensuring CAP compliance represents, as it were, a Brave New World. Helene Schultz unpacks the details. […]
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