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Webinars on TTIP

March 27, 2015 ARC

ARC2020 together with IATP has hosted 4 webinars on TTIP. In case you missed it or you would like to recap, you find the recordings below. Webinar: TTIP and Animal Welfare 26.02.2015 The EU and US have very different rules on the treatment of farm animals. The EU recognizes animals as sentient beings and requires Member states to respect their welfare, banning some of the worst forms of cruelty, many of which are common in the United States. Progress has been more limited in the U.S., but animal welfare activists won a major victory with California’s passage of a new law banning eggs produced in battery cages. The EU has proposed non-binding language on animal welfare in the draft text in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), but animal welfare advocates worry that this weak language will only make things worse. In fact, other language in TTIP intended to harmonize standards could jeopardize laws like the California ban and make it more difficult to raise animal welfare or food safety standards. Presenters include: Joyce […]

The Great Simplification Scam

March 27, 2015 ARC

Simplification of the CAP is a hot topic at the moment, and will be until at least May. At the most recent Agriculture and Fisheries Council meeting (19/03/2015) “ministers exchanged views on their experiences in the implementation of the new Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). The most important issues highlighted as needing simplification in direct payments were the ‘greening’ measures and the controls.” Minister Jānis Dūklavs recalled that “member states supported the efforts of Presidency to agree Council conclusions on CAP simplification in May. Some of the issues raised by the member states require urgent attention as rules will have to apply on the ground already this spring. There are some areas where simplification might be possible through minor amendments to the existing provisions established by the Commission” The momentum for simplification comes from the Commissioner Hogan, who emphasised it in a December speech: “We need to simplify our rules now and cut red tape in an effective way” he said, promising to have made progress within a year. In this speech he asked for submissions on […]

UK government reverts to paper for basic payments

March 27, 2015 ARC

With just seven weeks to go before the May 15 deadline for applications under the Basic Payments Scheme (BPS) the UK government has climbed down from its dogmatic commitment to digital by default. The Rural Payments Agency (RPA) will still require farmers to register online, but is making preparations to input data from paper forms. RPA chief executive Mark Grimshaw welcomed the possibility of more time for BPS claims, with the European Commission’s offer of an extended deadline of June 15. This was made by European agriculture commissioner Phil Hogan. According to the RPA, “over 80%” of English farms have registered. Meanwhile, the RPA is providing mobile units to reach isolated farmers, in addition to its 50-strong network of drop-in centres. Around 15,000 eligible farmers still need to register. Tenant Farmers’ Association (TFA) chief executive George Dunn expressed his relief that “DEFRA has at last accepted the need to abandon its plans for online only applications,” adding that “…the RPA has been left to pick up the pieces.” During the past few weeks, his membership […]

TTIP

March 23, 2015 ARC

CAPwatch

March 23, 2015 ARC

Analysing CAP expenditure provides a great opportunity for civil society organisations to assess whether CAP will really be, as was promised, greener and fairer. Here on CAPWatch, we will give you the facts and provide our own analysis. So CAPWatch will step behind the basic stats and the spin, and, using our own specially developed metrics, reveal just how fair and green CAP 2014-2020 is.[show-map id=’1′] For more details click on the member stateThe details used here will mainly be ex-post expenses, based on the financial reports provided by the European Commission and data provided by EuroStat. Expenditures are annually published by the European Union: this gives us the chance to make analyses and comparisons on a quantitative basis. This then allows for the calculation of very simple and useful indicators, such as percentages, monetary values of expenditure per Member State (MS), per hectare, for specific policy objectives etc.) to figure out the way CAP money is spent on land, per worker*, per value added and per rural development priority. These calculations will highlight the real weight of […]

Glyphosate: EU approval process seriously questioned

March 23, 2015 ARC

Guest opinion piece by Julia Sievers -of Agrarkoordination. This year, the EU will decide whether glyphosate – the best-selling pesticide worldwide – remains approved after 2015 for another 10 years. As a basis for this decision, German authorities – on behalf of the EU – have re-examined the risks of this pesticide. The German authorities argue in their assessment report that glyphosate is not dangerous and recommend a re-authorization. But the official assessment is extremely controversial. A fundamental problem is that the judgement of the authorities is based almost exclusively on studies of companies that produce their own glyphosate-based pesticides and therefore have a high self-interest in positive study results. In contrast to the assessment of the authorities and the industry studies, numerous studies of industry-independent scientists have give rise to more and more doubts about the safety of glyphosate and glyphosate-based pesticide. In addition to the adverse impacts on biodiversity, water, soil and some animal species, public attention has been paid to the health risks of the herbicide. There is scientific evidence, that Glyphosate causes cancer, […]

Do the stats show that farmers are loosing power? maybe not.

March 17, 2015 ARC

“Ms McGuinness’s press release should have congratulated farmers on increasing their share of consumer spending over this period, rather than arguing that their share has been decreasing.” So says Professor Alan Matthews, in a new post on his CAPreform blog. The context for this claim was the use by MEP Mairead McGuinness of EU Commission stats to suggest that farmer/producer power, as expressed through share of consumer price, is declining in the face of increasing power from further up the food chain, namely retailers. According to the Irish Times, Mairead Mcguinness said “The 2011 figures compiled by Eurostat show that farmers receive 21 per cent, the food industry gets 28 per cent and the remainder, 51 per cent, goes to food retail and food services. Receiving slightly more than one-fifth of the price consumers pay for food is an insufficient share for those who provide the lion’s share of the input. Farmers invest the greatest effort and time of all stakeholders in the food chain and also carry the greatest risks, including weather impacts.” So what is Alan Matthews saying? […]