The war in Ukraine is destabilising food security in Europe. The solution is not to dismantle the Farm to Fork strategy but to act on it faster. Here’s how the scenario is playing out and what’s at stake. […]
Sebastian Lakner assesses the current, rapidly changing situation of agri-food trade and policies. How is the war impacting on agri-food supplies, and what are the responses at EU and national level? This opinion piece is an English language update of an earlier German post on the agricultural economist’s blog. […]
An appalling war on Ukraine has manifold impacts. The direct human cost is immense and incalculable. The impacts on the world’s agri-food trade and commodity systems will be huge. The 4 F’s – fuel, feed, fertilizer and of course food are all heavily implicated. So what to do? Will Europe suspend progress on rerouting the food system towards more resilience, by doubling down into the worst aspects of these 4 F’s? Or can some aspects of a deeper iteration of food sovereignty emerge? […]
After “organic,” “non-GMO,” or even “palm-oil free,” there may be a new label coming to products for EU consumers: “Deforestation-free.” But might there be unintended consequences for some of the world’s poorest smallholders, who also happen to be those least responsible for climate breakdown? Ashley Parsons and Oliver Moore report. […]
With the French Presidency of the EU, some specific areas have come to the fore for farming, food and rural Europe. Under a broad-if-wooly EU Green Deal framework, carbon farming, pesticides, geographical indications, and reciprocal standards (mirror clauses) for third countries have received added impetus in this six month presidency. Ashley Parsons takes us though some of these, and some other hot topics, in this mid month round up for us. […]
Imagine having a target to reduce pesticide use and risk by 50%, an aim to collect reliable data, the basic groundwork in place to reach it, and then working to make it far harder to actually collect the data to meet this target? Led by a group of 10 member states, the Council of Ministers has adopted a mandate for trilogue negotiations that does just this. […]
Despite the spin, after years of negotiations, the CAP that will be voted on this week in Strasbourg does little of substance to really address the crises – climate and biodiversity – and does as little as possible to address fairness. And there will be much talk of the greenest CAP ever, but this is mostly hot air unfortunately. Here we outline what’s being voted on in plenary, present related survey data from EEB/Birdlife, IFOAM EU and share the views of Sommer Ackerman of the Withdraw the CAP movement. […]
The food environment, a shift towards vegetables, and true cost true prices. There are the themes our colleagues in the Dutch Food Transition Coalition focused on in a submission on sustainable food systems in the EU. You can read an adapted version of the Dutch submission below, written by Willem Lageweg (director) Joost de Jong (strategic advisor) Dutch Food Transition Coalition. […]
The Farm to Fork strategy is having an impact – and the forces of business-as-usual aren’t happy. Here Camille Perrin (BEUC), Nick Jacobs (IPES-Food) and Nina Holland (CEO) express their concerns about studies and corporate-led events “based on models which are ill-suited to evaluating the impacts of transforming our food systems.” Further, the authors point to how inappropriate these studies and events are when assessing the Farm to Fork Strategy itself. […]
The second Balkan Rural Parliament took place last month in Ohrid, North Macedonia. The Declaration of the 2nd Balkan Rural Parliament is the major output of the forum which was organised by the Balkan Rural Development Network. […]
The European Commission published its Communication on A long-Term Vision for the EU’s rural areas on Wednesday June 30th. There is much that’s worth recognising and lauding in this, including a new ‘Rural Pact’. However there are serious gaps and significant blind spots. In particular, the how and when elements – strategy and immediacy – are conspicuous in their absence. […]
A year on from the launch of the EU Farm to Fork and Biodiversity Strategies, the Good Food Good Farming coalition is running an exciting social media campaign to raise citizens’ awareness of the problems of industrial agriculture and illustrate a path towards a better future for food and farming. […]
Despite a sequence of late night meetings and to-and-fro of proposals covering most of the contentious outstanding areas, the so-called jumbo-trilogues talks have ended without agreement. Parliament and Council failed to reconcile their positions on a number of key areas. The remaining areas include”green architecture” (a number of GAECs, ring-fencing of support for eco-schemes and environmental investments, tracking climate spending, alignment to the Green Deal), internal convergence, the social dimension and coupled income support. So what happened? […]
This paper, written by Marjorie Jouen of the Jacques Delors Institute, has benefitted from inputs and reflections of Marion Eckardt, Maria José Murciano-Sanchez, Michael Schmitz, Francesco Mantino and Hannes Lorenzen expressing themselves in their personal capacity. […]
According to a new policy note by ClientEarth, the EU COVID19-recovery plan is a missed opportunity to make agriculture more sustainable – ‘Instead of tying these resources to effective green conditions, the Council and European Parliament have given Member States carte blanche.’ Hans Wetzels has more. […]
Agricultural and Rural Convention