de Castro v. Ciolos

Written by Attila Szocs, Land Rights Campaigner at Eco Ruralis This week, Romania received the formal approval from the European Commission for the starting of the National Rural Development Plan (NRDP) for the 2014-2020 time frame. This enables the Romanian Ministry for Agriculture, to launch all measures of the program. Formal declarations were made at the end of an official meeting in Bucharest, between Phil Hogan, European Commissioner for Agriculture and Daniel Constantin, Romanian Minister for Agriculture and Rural Development. A delicate matter was raised during the discussions. The Romanian authorities requested the re-designation of the “Less Favored Areas” (LFAs) of the country, given the fact that some of the provisions led to the exclusion of vulnerable areas which were formerly part of support plans. Commissioner Hogan underlined that the issue is known at an EU level but that “there is a regulatory problem which cannot be solved”. A paradox situation, given the fact that the Romanian Ministry for Agriculture accomplished the re-designation in the first place.  LFAs are geographical areas where agricultural production is qualitatively and quantitatively […]

What were the most popular stories we published in 2018? While we tend to specialise in CAP and agri-food policy matters in the EU institutions – someone has to, right? – soil, agtech, agroecology, food sovereignty, milk and letters from the farm have proven to be popular. […]

“Ecological focus areas should be established, in particular, in order to safeguard and improve biodiversity on farms“. So say the official EU documents. And yet for these EFAs, Member States are choosing ‘productive options’ – in particular catch crops and nitrogen fixing crops – over biodiversity. Using newly released data, Sebastian Lakner shows us just how ineffective and poorly targeted EFAs are, in Germany and beyond. […]