Unusually for these times, this week a cautious optimism is in the air. The European Commission has unveiled its much anticipated Farm to Fork strategy, and stuck to its guns with relatively ambitious new targets for agriculture. Predictably enough, the agri-lobby was not happy. Louise Kelleher walks us through the reactions. […]
Hidden away in a footnote, away from the fanfare of the launch of the EU Green Deal’s Farm to Fork and Biodiversity Strategies, was a nonetheless crucially important document. A document that links vision to the practical CAP work member states are currently conducting. So what’s in it, what’s missing, and what does it say about power relations between the Institutions and the Member States? […]
Despite enormous lobby pressure, the EU Commission’s flagship Green Deal strategies – the Farm to Fork and the Biodiversity Strategies – have retained their initially leaked targets for a reduction in fertilizers, pesticides, antimicrobials, and concurrently, for an increased in organic farming to 25% – and all by 2030. The 10% target for high diversity landscape features has also been retained. […]
As the eagerly awaited EU Commission Farm to Fork and Biodiversity strategies are about to be released tomorrow, a battle is on for the specifics. […]
This week the European Commission will reveal how it plans to work towards the pesticide reduction targets as set in the Green Deal, via the Farm to Fork strategy and also the Biodiversity strategy. However chemical giant Bayer CropScience has made clear it does not want any binding legislation as part of the new EU Biodiversity Strategy. With specific numbers for reduction in the use of pesticides and fertilizers in the biodiversity strategy in particular, will real targets be dampened down on the 20th May? […]
Specific reductions in the use of mineral fertilizers and pesticides, as well as a target for the increase in the land under organic management, are among the 2030 Commitments of the EU Biodiversity Strategy. […]
39 civil society organisations, including ARC2020, have come together to demand that the EU’s Farm to Fork and Biodiversity strategies remain on schedule for April publication. […]
The European Commission continues to describe the Common Agricultural Policy as “ambitious”, yet its own evaluation of the CAP’s impact reveals that the farm subsidy scheme is inflicting massive damage on Europe’s biodiversity, water resources and nature. In this in-depth feature, Célia Nyssens of the European Environmental Bureau (EEB) explains why the CAP is not fit for purpose and outlines how it can be reformed. […]
Copa-Cogeca is attempting to derail the European Commission’s Farm to Fork strategy. In a letter seen by ARC2020, dated April 2nd, the agri lobby have called for an “inception impact assessment” to be carried out, due to unique circumstances caused by Covid19. […]
Farm to Fork is the European Commission’s strategy to support an EU-wide transition to sustainable food production. The Roadmap for the new strategy was open for public consultation until last week. In the final instalment in this three-part series covering feedback on Farm to Fork so far, we look at comments from farmers and agricultural organizations. Hans Wetzels reports. […]
The Farm to Fork strategy aspires to fix our broken food systems while advancing the EU’s sustainability goals. In this three-part series we hear what environmental, health and farming organisations have to say about Farm to Fork so far. Here, Natasha Foote reports on some of the key voices in the health sector to bring us their take on the strategy as it currently stands. […]
EU Leaders disagree on CAP, on how it should be funded, and on how that funding should be divided up between different priorities. Meanwhile, there are delays, the parallel farm to fork strategy, talk of transitional arrangements, and now, the global pandemic that is COVID-19 to deal with. Natasha Foote unpacks some of the details. […]
The Farm2Fork strategy is out for consultation at present, closing on 16th March. It is self-described as a sustainable food strategy is key to achieving the goals of the EU’s Green Deal. This strategy “sets out the regulatory and non-regulatory measures needed to create more efficient, climate-smart systems that provide healthy food, while securing a decent living for EU farmers and fishermen.” So how is the process unfolding, and how does – or will – it relate to the CAP? […]
There are a number of policy imperatives coming together, all of which related in some way to farming, food and rural Europe. While CAP clanks on, the EU Green Deal and its Farm2Fork component have more ambition and perhaps momentum. But how will these policy proposals work out their differences, with pressure from some many angles bearing down on them? Oliver Moore sketches out the terrain. […]
ARC2020 has obtained a draft copy of the EU’s Farm2Fork Strategy on Sustainable Food Systems Draft Action Plan, as of 13th January. Download it in full in the article. […]
Agricultural and Rural Convention