places Archives - Page 2 of 14 - Agricultural and Rural Convention

Western Balkans | Reviving Rural Areas & Moving Towards EU Integration

June 17, 2021 ARC

This week the second Balkan Rural Parliament took place in Ohrid, North Macedonia. Organised by the Balkan Rural Development Network, the Balkan Rural Parliament gives a voice to rural communities in the making of rural development policy for the Western Balkans. For EU accession countries, rural development is a key driver to accelerate the process of EU integration. The Parliament highlighted the need to strengthen mutual trust on every level between people and national institutions, as well as between the Western Balkans and the EU to build equal partnerships, writes Aleksandra Todorovska. […]

UK | Pond Life Revives Hope for On-Farm Wildlife

May 27, 2021 Ursula Billington

Pond restoration yields dramatic results for nature. Seedbanks, dormant for 150 years, spring back to life; rare indigenous plants return within months. Invertebrate populations explode, significant for severely declining freshwater biodiversity. Insect chimneys attract huge numbers of birdlife and twice the species normally seen in the area. Ursula Billington reports on a farmer-inspired project to restore pondlife in Norfolk, UK. […]

Letter From The Farm | Welcome to Ciasnocha Family Farm

May 24, 2021 Mateusz Ciasnocha

Welcome to Ciasnocha Family Farm – a 730 ha regenerative grassland farm in the Vistula delta of northern Poland. In his first Letter From The Farm, Mateusz Ciasnocha walks us through what’s involved throughout the year on his farm. But first, Mateusz gives us a whistlestop tour of the farm’s history over three generations, from Communism to CAP, and the transition to regenerative agriculture. […]

The True Cost of Britain’s Addiction to Factory-Farmed Chicken

May 14, 2021 ARC

The intensive poultry industry in the UK has expanded in recent decades, becoming more akin to the USA’s mega farms. Investigating how intensive poultry units have multiplied across certain parts of the UK, Alison Caffyn discovered that the poultry industry has taken advantage of weak regulatory and planning regimes to scale up the lucrative business. […]

UK | Who Grew Your Clothes? Soil to Soil Textiles – Part 2

May 10, 2021 Ursula Billington

In this second installment of a two-part special on the soil-to-soil textiles movement, we hear from more women spearheading new ways with wool, as Ursula Billington zooms in on an innovative textile community in Bristol. […]

UK | Who Grew Your Clothes? Soil to Soil Textiles – Part 1

May 5, 2021 Ursula Billington

In the first of a two-part special on the soil-to-soil textiles movement, Ursula Billington unravels the disconnect with where our clothes come from, and spotlights some of the women working to pull the wool from our eyes. […]

France | Building Rural Resilience From The Ground Up

May 3, 2021 Hannes Lorenzen

ARC2020 is launching a new project in France to build rural resilience from the ground up. It’s called “Nos Campagnes En Résilience”. The goal is to empower rural communities to realise their own fair and socio-ecological transitions, by connecting and supporting the many exciting initiatives that are emerging on the ground. Why France? And why now? Hannes Lorenzen explains. […]

CAP Strategic Plans: Germany Taking Steps in the Right Direction?

April 29, 2021 Sebastian Lakner

In March 2021, the German Agriculture Ministers’ Conference and the Federal Ministry for Food and Agriculture agreed on important cornerstones for the country’s CAP Strategic Plan. In his preliminary assessment, Sebastian Lackner shows that while the resolutions have opened the door for a more ambitious CAP in Germany, it remains to be seen whether the federal and state governments will seize the opportunity when they decide on details still to be negotiated. […]

Czech Republic | COPA No Longer Defends Interests of Majority of Czech Farmers

April 28, 2021 ARC

Frustrated time and again, the Czech Farmers Association has finally quit COPA. In this op-ed, Jaroslav Šebek, Jan Štefl and Jan Staněk argue that COPA is failing to listen to its members. For them, COPA’s handling of the capping of direct payments was the last straw. […]

Letter From The Farm | Freedom, Forgotten Places And The Future Of Farming

April 28, 2021 Louise Kelleher

We’re back with Czech livestock farmer Josef, who says we need to trust farmers more. Farmers will make responsible decisions unless the system forces them to act irresponsibly. And he explains why the future of farming is in forgotten places. […]

UK | How Nature Brought A Family Farm Back To Life

April 23, 2021 Ursula Billington

As the English countryside is gobbled up by monoculture, one family farm is making space for nature. Carymarsh nature reserve is a patchwork of habitats – wetlands, woodlands and feeding grounds for overwintering birds – where people are welcome too. Story by Ursula Billington. […]

Pesticides | Neonicotinoids Update Spring 2021

April 20, 2021 ARC

Justice Pesticides is an organisation that compiles a worldwide database of pesticide litigation. Here we share two articles from Justice Pesticides’ March newsletter. The first introduces a recently published brochure on court cases involving neonicotinoid pesticides, and the second outlines the return of neonicotinoids to sugar beet fields in France. […]

Cut The Crap, Withdraw The CAP!

April 13, 2021 ARC

Climate striker Sommer Ackerman became active in protests for a better CAP in October 2020. She combines activism at EU level in the WithdrawTheCAP campaign with activism at national level to make agri-food policy change in Finland. […]

Time for US and EU to Regulate Factory Farms’ Greenhouse Gas Emissions

April 12, 2021 Ben Lilliston

The factory farm system used by global agribusiness firms is a major source of the greenhouse gas methane. Ben Lilliston and Shefali Sharma of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) highlight that the push for appropriate regulation of factory farms’ methane emissions in the U.S. should coincide with EU efforts to regulate these emissions. […]

Letter From The Farm | Rasputin The Ram & The Ethics Of Lamb For Easter Dinner

April 12, 2021 Matthew Hayes

We’re back on Zsámbok farm in Hungary, where Matthew, Kata and the team have been doing some deep thinking about the ethics of taking a life as they slaughter their first sheep. The farm is trying to strike a balance between respecting traditions while pursuing sustainability and efficiency, writes Matthew – and learning as they go. […]