Undaunted by the challenge of growing grapes in rainy England, the family-run Aldwick Estate turned to wine production as a way to improve soil health. Ursula Billington spoke to the wine growers about fungicides, inspiration from France, and the future of wine-making in the UK. […]
In the world’s fifth-richest country, one in five people still go hungry, and the UK’s post Covid scheme will leave many out in the cold. Migrants are among the groups who are starving as they have no recourse to public funds, reports Harriet Morphy-Morris. […]
In post-Brexit Britain, the new Agriculture Bill is exposing the fault lines between environmental conservation, neoliberal trade deals, and the future of small-scale farming. In part two of this series, Anoushka Zoob Carter explores the phenomenon of technological nationalism in post-CAP politics, and the conflicts it is generating between advocates of rural renewal and of an emancipatory rural politics. […]
Livestock farmers Jen and Andy of Fernhill Farm in Somerset, England have been practicing regenerative agriculture since before they had a name for it. Twenty years ago their “extensive nomadic ways” were dismissed as too traditional; now it’s clear these pioneers of sustainable agroecology were ahead of their time. Ursula Billington tells us more. […]
The era of direct payments in the UK is ending. Farm policy in the UK just took a step forward into the post CAP era this week with the royal assent on the Agriculture Bill. Now an Act of parliament, it represents a pretty radical new approach to farm support – paying farmers for the public goods or benefits they provide. […]
Brexit and the Covid crisis have yielded easy pickings for the far right. In the first of a two-part series, Anoushka Zoob Carter unpacks how new forms of nationalism are exploiting a broken food and farming system. […]
Ukraine is a major agricultural exporter to the European Union. A progressive CAP could force Ukrainian agriculture towards more sustainability. But the current nationalization of the CAP might steer such environmental ambitions off course. […]
This web-conference, organised by the Scottish Government’s Paris Hub in partnership with IDDRI and with the support of Sciences Po’s “Make it work” initiative, will present Scotland’s approach to climate change and the just transition. The experiences of France, New Zealand and the UK in these areas will also be explored. For further details and information on how to register, see here.
It seems inconceivable that it was only a year ago when the UK was due to crash out of the EU under a no deal Brexit. Thankfully that crisis was averted. Leading up to that momentous non-event, I wrote about what might happen to our food supply in the event that our smooth trading relationship with the EU broke down utterly. One year on, we find ourselves in a remarkably similar position […]
Food security is no laughing matter at the best of times, but TIm Lang gasped when he first read the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’ (Defra) annual food civil contingencies infrastructure report in 2018. It is barely a page long (in public at least) and assures us everything is OK and that the food system is resilient and able to withstand shocks. As the coronvirus racks the nation and panic buying continues, this complacency is about to be tested. […]
All too often access to land is an insurmountable hurdle for new entrants to farming. The innovative Ecological Land Co-operative tackles this head-on, by developing accessible smallholdings for ecological agriculture and supporting new farmers. […]
The FAO expects former Soviet countries like Ukraine to play an important role in feeding the world the coming decades. But questions remain about who will benefit from the oncoming agricultural gold rush. […]
One of the few bright spots of Brexit is the opportunity the UK now has to rewrite its agri-food and rural rules. The RSA’s report ‘Our Future in the Land’ gives some indication of what such a food and farming future might look like. The outcome? Agroecology! […]
To compete in the domestic and international market, British farmers and food processors must target the quality-differentiated, food-market segments. The multi-characteristic and multi-functional qualities of products must be effectively communicated to the consumer in an all-inclusive and transparent fashion. […]
Recent publications have thrust the inequality of UK land ownership into the public eye. Lesser known is that landowners (and farmers) profit further from a series of, sometimes bizarre, tax breaks. Miles King summarises the findings of a report by People Need Nature into this tax system. […]
Agricultural and Rural Convention