Daily updates on whats new on the ARC website and in the CAP debate
In the UK, where the Black Lives Matter movement coalesced with a pandemic-provoked appreciation for green space and local food for all, questions of unequal land access and ownership are becoming impossible to ignore. Ursula Billington reports on a couple of urban farms that are opening their gates to inclusion. […]
A newly published paper seeks to reposition legumes as protagonists in policy debates and encourage us to identify policies that would better support the transformation of European food- and feed-systems to a new norm, with greatly increased production and consumption of homegrown legumes and homegrown legume-based products. A savoury account of legume policy by lead author Bálint Balázs. […]
Carbon farming is a new buzz word, hotly debated in the EU Commission, in European Ministries and Chambers of Agriculture, and the subject of numerous projects and movements. It is in fact proposed as an ecoscheme by the Commission. So far, however, there is no binding definition of “carbon farming” and there seem to be many different understandings of the term. What most approaches have in common is the objective of storing carbon in the soil in some way. Soil Scientist Dr. Andrea Beste unpacks some important points for this contested approach to soil and land management. […]
An inquiry by European Ombudsman Emily O’Reilly has found that the European Commission should have concluded an updated sustainability impact assessment before signing the EU-Mercosur trade deal. But will this be enough to stop national parliaments from ratifying the deal? Hans Wetzels reports. […]
Over 100 organisations including trade unions, NGOs, and organisations representing small farmers have signed an open letter highlighting the need for social conditionality in the next CAP. Unsurprisingly the major farming organisations in Europe have not signed the letter. But how are labour standards on smaller farms at the ecological end of the spectrum? The picture isn’t always rosy, as Brendán Ó Conchúir find out, though there are some tentative solutions emerging. […]
Welcome to Herdade do Freixo do Meio, a 600-hectare community farm in Alentejo, Portugal. Run by a cooperative, the farm prides itself on agroecological food production that is local, responsible and conscious. Alfredo Sendim explains how the farm is building resilience through a collective approach. […]
As the CAP ‘Super Trilogue’ gets underway, the Commission’s Long Term Vision for Rural Areas (LTVRA) process culminates in a week-long conference hosted by the European Network for Rural Development. We at ARC are adamant that CAP reform and the Rural Vision process should not have been kept apart. […]
It is time to rediscover the roots of our resilience by grounding land policy in collective action and democratic forms of land politics. That’s according to a new report led by Transnational Institute. This position is based on an understanding of land not as a commodity but as a common resource, a living territory and a natural landscape. […]
Ireland’s current agri-food strategy places environmental protection and economic competitiveness on an equal footing. But can ambitions for growth be squared with the state’s duty to protect the environment? In the first of a two-part series, Alison Brogan investigates the realities of sustainable growth on the Emerald Isle. […]
According to a new policy note by ClientEarth, the EU COVID19-recovery plan is a missed opportunity to make agriculture more sustainable – ‘Instead of tying these resources to effective green conditions, the Council and European Parliament have given Member States carte blanche.’ Hans Wetzels has more. […]
Can sustainable growth really allow biodiversity to thrive? In the second of a two-part series, Alison Brogan investigates the impact of Ireland’s ambitious agri-food strategy on protected grassland habitats. […]
There are “strong links between politics and the biggest beneficiaries of the subsidies” in five Central and East European member states of the EU. That’s according to a new in-depth study “Where does the money go”, which examines the implementation of the EU agriculture funds in Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania and the Czech Republic. The study, which was commissioned by the Greens/EFA political group in the European Parliament, sheds a stark light on how the CAP is not only funding degradation of biodiversity but also degrading democracy. Hans van Scharen reports. […]
For much of history brewing beer was primarily women’s work. However, in the Early Modern period accusations of witchcraft were levelled against female brewers to make way for their male counterparts. Since then the beer industry remains dominated by men. As Laken Brooks sets out, it doesn’t have to stay that way. […]
The many challenges faced by Eco Ruralis and the food sovereignty movement in Romania are now compounded by the presence of the far-right in parliament. A recent study by Anna Hajdu and Natalia Mamonova discusses obstacles and opportunities. […]
We are back on Chiara Garini’s forest farm at the foot of the Italian Alps. Three years in, her mushroom farm and forest garden is at a crossroads: should she expand or diversify? In any case Chiara is determined to bring utopia into her business plan, and tells us about an exciting new development on the farm… […]
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