Recent updates Archives - Agricultural and Rural Convention

Eco-Scheming | Council Adopts a CAP Position of no Ecological Substance

21 October, 2020 Alison Brogan

After 48 hours of intense debate in Luxembourg, the Council of Minsters agreed its position on the post-2020 CAP package in the early hours of Wednesday morning. This means that once the Parliament reaches its final position Friday, trilogue discussions on the CAP reform can proceed. So what did Europe’s ag minister’s decide on? […]

Parliament Plenary Surgically Removes Green Deal from CAP

21 October, 2020 ARC

This week, the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers have set a direction for CAP which fundamentally ignores the Commission’s European Green Deal (EGD), and, by extension, the biodiversity and climate crises that led to the EGD. […]

Parliament Plenary – Here’s the Amendments to Vote for and Against

19 October, 2020 ARC

This week is an important one in Europe, with both the Council of Ministers and the Parliament meeting on CAP. MEPs have a plenary vote upcoming later this week . This means the Parliament will adopt an overall, established position for the next stage – trialogue negotiations with Council and Commission. Here we link to all amendments and provide a quick guide to voting for and against certain amendments. […]

Billions for CAP as an “extinction machine” – Farm to Fork Derailed

14 October, 2020 ARC

Next week, likely on October 20, the European parliament will vote on a supposedly historical reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which accounts for over one third of the EU annual budget. But as it stands, it is rather set to become a historical failure of rather catastrophic proportions. Op-Ed by Nina Holland, Martin Pigeon and Hans van Scharen, researchers at Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) […]

Parliament – Big Three Political Groups Try to Scupper CAP Eco-Schemes

13 October, 2020 ARC

The three biggest groupings in the European Parliament – Renew Europe, the Socialists and Democrats (S&D) and the European People’s Party (EPP) – have come together to launch an attack on the environment elements of the CAP proposal. […]

Regenerative Agriculture part 2 | A Soils-First Farming & Food Policy

13 October, 2020 Peter Dunne

In the second installment of an exclusive series on regenerative agriculture, Peter Dunne unpacks the rise of agrochemicals and the noxious legacy of the Green Revolution. He argues that regenerative agriculture is a reason for hope, if only we can put soils first in our farming and food policy.
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Reclaiming the Place of Agrobiodiversity in the Conservation and Food Debates

12 October, 2020 ARC

Both academic and policy debates tend to focus on how to further intensify agricultural landscapes to spare natural lands for natural biodiversity conservation and carbon sequestration. This Brief from IDDRI elaborates on a literature review of recent publications to argue that equal attention should be paid to the protection and restoration of biodiversity within agricultural landscapes, most notably for the role it plays as a critical production factor. […]

Commission Proposes Four Flagship Eco-schemes – ARC2020 analysis

12 October, 2020 ARC

On Friday 09 October 2020, the Commission finally put forward four flagship eco-schemes for the CAP Strategic Plans Regulation. What has been proposed, and what are the considerations with each of these potential eco-schemes? […]

Russia | Climate Crisis & Fields of Possibility

9 October, 2020 Alia Yakupova

Russia is at a crossroads: will it dominate global export markets, or deliver stability and climate solutions for rural areas? In the third and final installment in our Russia series, Alia Yakupova and Hannes Lorenzen explore the fields in which Russia is fighting the battle with the climate and biodiversity crises. […]

Russia | Where Is Agriculture Going?

7 October, 2020 Alia Yakupova

Part 2 of our Russia series aims to shed a light on the Russian agricultural industry and changes that lie ahead. Alia Yakupova and Hannes Lorenzen walk us through a brief history of Russia and the potential impact of recent developments on global agriculture and food. […]

New Seed Platform – Seeds4All – Launches

5 October, 2020 ARC

Seeds4All is dedicated to seed diversity, and it aims to “give visibility to all European organisations that collect, enrich, produce, disseminate and sustainably use traditional and new varieties of seeds belonging to the public domain, freely reproducible and not genetically modified.” […]

Russia | 2000m² of Hospitality

5 October, 2020 Hannes Lorenzen

To kick off our new series on Russia, Hannes Lorenzen takes us to the tiny village of Kalinino, where he was overwhelmed by the local hospitality. Here, each family produces much of their own food on around 2000m² of land. […]

The Missing Funds for Agroecology: What’s Europe’s Role?

1 October, 2020 ARC

The lack of funds by international donors and European countries towards agroecology is a blocking factor for the transformation needed in our food systems. […]

Czech Republic | Wrangling with the Next Generation

30 September, 2020 Louise Kelleher

Meet Czech farmer Terezie Daňková, who raises cattle and sheep on a 450 ha. ranch on mostly rented land in Southern Bohemia, with the help of her cowgirl daughter Barbora (20), her son Vojtěch (13), and a stable of horses. Louise Kelleher speaks to two generations of women farmers about the realities of rural life, the pull of the city, and what brings them back to the farm. […]

The Culling Debate That’s Polarizing Poland

28 September, 2020 Igor Tomasz Olech

To cull or not to cull? As Poland’s battle with African Swine Fever rages on, state-sponsored efforts to decimate the wild boar population have polarized public opinion. In part 2 of this series, Igor Tomasz Olech examines the two sides of the culling story. […]