Join Green Farming Now – All Day Web Event 17th February

London. Land Workers Alliance, Good Food, Good Farming March. 2018.

With CAP activities hotting up – in trilogue and at member state level – our friends in Good Food Good Farming have, with Birdlife Europe, organised an agri-food policy event for 17th February. The need for transformation, the science and evidence behind why and how CAP isn’t working, along with some practical suggestions for how to communicate and mobilise around CAP issues form the core elements of this exciting all-day event. 

Good Food Good Farming (GFGF) host a full day virtual conference on Wednesday, 17 February to discuss how to ensure a nature-friendly future for farming in the EU. The movement for a significant farming transition is vast, with a number of areas in need of rapid reform.

The event is mainly in three parts – the need for a transformation in agri-food policy; the evidence for how CAP fails, and then the activism of making better agri-food policy happen.

Organised with Birdlife Europe and Central Asia, there is a strong focus on how biodiversity is, in many ways, rapidly declining despite significant CAP spending on this very area. In fact, over half of the farmland bird populations have disappeared since just 1980, Birdlife point out. 

Its not just a talk shop either – innovative and proven tools for communicating on CAP will be presented from around Europe, including the Basta! campaign in France, led by Pour Une Autre PAC and GFGF’s own Communications Toolkit. 

We will hear more about emerging movements now focusing more on CAP, including Friday’s For Future’s  Withdraw the CAP movement and about Extinction Rebellion’s work on Europe’s most significant agri-food policy.  

The Good Food Good Farming coalition work with ARC on building the CAP strategic plans project with us, whereby we integrate what’s happening in the member states into our analysis of CAP. 

It is in this capacity – CAP as it is developing in the member states – that our own policy analyst Matteo Metta is presenting findings from his recent work, such as the report below.

ARC2020 – New Report on CAP Strategic Plans

The full programme for February 17th is below. You can register here.

PROGRAMME

10:00 Words of welcome

by our moderator, Meera Ghani

10:15 The science: why we need a green farming transition now

  • Achieving agroecology in the EU: the why and how of a credible option; by Xavier Poux, Senior research and study officer AScA, fellow researcher at IDDRI
  • Billions in misspent EU Agricultural subsidies could support climate, biodiversity and equality; by Kimberly Nicholas, Associate Professor of Sustainability Science, Lund University
  • How can the CAP work for both farmers and the environment? Recommendations from scientists; by Dr. Guy Pe’er, Scientist at iDiv, the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research, and UFZ – Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research
  • Systemic solutions for systemic problems: towards a Common Food Policy; by Nick Jacobs, Director, IPES-Food – International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems

11:00 Q&A

11:30 Lunch break

13:30 Afternoon welcome

13:40 Taking action: how we campaign to make farming work for people and nature

  • CAP reform – EU level; by Harriet Bradley, Senior EU Agriculture and Bioenergy Policy Officer, BirdLife Europe & Central Asia
  • CAP reform – national level; by Matteo Metta, Policy Analyst, Arc 2020
  • #WithdrawTheCAP campaign; by Martina Comparelli, Fridays for Future, Italy
  • Farmers’ perspective; by Alex Datema, President, BoerenNatuur, Netherlands
  • Farmers’ perspective; by Martin Lines, Chair, Nature Friendly Farmers’ Network, UK
  • Building alliances for better food and farming; by Verena Günther, Campaign Coordinator, Good Food Good Farming
  • ‘Pour une autre PAC’s’ advocacy and campaigning work; by Aurélie Catallo, Coordinator, Pour une autre PAC, France
  • Campaigning for good food good farming in Romania; by Márta Pozsonyi, Slow Food Turda/StudCoop, Romania
  • Extinction Rebellion and CAP reform; by Sommer Ackerman, XR Finland
  • Online campaigning; by Annemarie Botzki, Senior Campaigner, WeMove Europe

14:40 Interactive breakout sessions

15:10 Afternoon break

15:30 From the fields to the people: Communicating about the CAP

  • Honey Kohan, Communication Manager, BirdLife Europe & Central Asia
  • Thin Lei Win, Food & climate journalist, ex-Thomson Reuters Foundation
  • Communications toolkit for good food and good farming; by Ronja Dietschmann, Campaign communicator Good Food Good Farming

16:30 The road ahead

by Ariel Brunner, Acting Director and Senior Head of Policy, BirdLife Europe & Central Asia