While the exploitation of agri-food sector workers is a longstanding food system issue, the emergence of slaughterhouses across Europe and the US as coronavirus hotspots has brought renewed urgency and heightened awareness to issues relating to the conditions to which meat-plant workers are exposed. Alison Brogan rounds up the Covid19 news on this topic from the US, Ireland and Germany. […]
The COVID-19 pandemic draws attention to many things, including our global connectedness, the role of ‘big government’, marginalisation, solidarity, and the ‘unsung heroes’ who keep essential systems running. For all of us, it tests our resilience… […]
We’re back on Brindusa’s farm in Romania, where the Covid-19 crisis has halted her main sales. On the flip side she’s seeing a lot more interest in local food. She’s been doing a lot of thinking about food justice and the informal economy. The lockdown has made her take stock of her privilege. And so this year she’s determined to feed more people than ever. The only question is, how will she distribute this year’s bumper crop? […]
Covid19 has seen extraordinary measures to keep sectors of the economy afloat. In some cases, however there are winners and losers when money moves around – and consequences for producers other EU member states trying to compete with massive bailouts. Igor Olech has more. […]
Low cost labour intensive vegetable production has been under strain in recent weeks. Tens of thousands of seasonal workers have moved from east to west – as they do each year. This year is not, however, a typical year. Covid19 has added new dimensions, while also shining a spotlight on an otherwise hidden army of harvesters. But is harvesting the white gold more valuable than the health of Romanian farm workers? […]
It is difficult to grasp the scale of the situation we face with covid-19. People’s lives change fundamentally. So do our societies and economies. We face massive reductions: less mobility, no physical meetings, no open markets, no cultural events. We are living in isolation. How can we, how can our societies adjust to this new reality? How can we as ARC2020, as European network, research community, news provider and advocacy platform contribute to keeping civic movements alive and active around sustainable farming, food supply and transition towards better farming, food supply and ago-environmental practices? […]
In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, our creaking food systems have triggered a crisis within a crisis. Covid-19 has sounded the alarm on the planet’s unsustainable agricultural systems. Small-scale farms are vital links in the resilient local supply chains we need to build. But in the Czech Republic small farmers face challenges, and a six-week closure of farmers markets has hit hard. Louise Kelleher reports. […]
There is a simple explanation why I am writing as a farmer: when we as a society come under such enormous pressure that it raises existential questions, like the spread of the COVID-19 pathogen is doing, we have to reflect on what we really need in such a crisis […]
For Raflazz farm resilience is a way of life. The Adami family has been making artisanal cheese for generations here in the hills of Piedmont. When Italy shut down its restaurants on March 9, the farm had nowhere to sell its cheeses and meat. In another brutal blow, receipts from the farmhouse restaurant and B&B disappeared overnight. Raflazz is adapting fast, but like many small-scale farms it will need life support to survive the lockdown. Emanuele Amo reports from Piedmont. […]
The EU Commission announced today private storage aid for meat and dairy, flexibility for market support programmes in wine, fruits and vegetables, olive oil, apiculture and the EU’s school scheme (milk, fruits and vegetables) and derogation from some EU competition rules in milk, flowers and potatoes. […]
While it can feel undeniably overwhelming at times, its also important to remain informed and focused on how we can achieve better food, farming and a rural space – even in our new context. Much of the last month has been rightly focused on going back to basics – food, shelter, medicine. If we must go back to basics, and refocus on primary production, so be it. So what does this mean? […]
The Covid-19 pandemic has put our food systems to the test, exposing the vulnerabilities of an unsustainable status quo. In a communiqué released on Tuesday, IPES-Food slams shortsighted solutions to the crisis. Calling for a paradigm shift to agroecological farming, it says now is the time to transform the seeds of change into the foundations of a resilient new food system. Industrial food systems are being peddled as solutions when in fact they are the problem. Louise Kelleher reports. […]
European Coordination of Via Campesina’s call to join the#StayHomeButNotSilent call to action on April 17 to commemorate the International Day of Peasant Struggle, reiterates the fundamental role of peasants in feeding people, even in the most difficult times. It takes a crisis for alternative food systems to emerge. Is our food system, dominated by trade ideology instead of human rights, ready to face pandemics? […]
There is a spectrum of possible responses to this unfolding crisis. Here we’ll briefly introduce some small and also larger mutual aid initiatives, or local and community responses to covid19 and what it brings out in people – from street to municipal levels, from rural to border areas. […]
Where will we be in six months, a year, ten years from now? I lie awake at night wondering what the future holds for my loved ones. My vulnerable friends and relatives. I wonder what will happen to my job, even though I’m luckier than many: I get good sick pay and can work remotely. I am writing this from the UK, where I still have self-employed friends who are staring down the barrel of months without pay, friends who have already lost jobs. The contract that pays 80% of my salary runs out in December. Coronavirus is hitting the economy badly. Will anyone be hiring when I need work? […]
Agricultural and Rural Convention