‘Should agricultural subsidies go to labour not land?’ This question was up for discussion at a meeting hosted by ARC2020 in Summer 2021. Area based payments are absolutely central to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) yet they have a range of negative impacts and act as a barrier to progressive change. […]
On 11-12 October 2021, the agri-ministers from all over the EU will be invited to share their views on design and approval of the CAP Strategic Plan, with emphasis on transparency and inclusion. With no sense of irony, this meeting will be held behind closed doors. […]
After more than 2 years of negotiations since June 2018, the three EU co-legislators found an agreement on the regulations for the future Common Agricultural Policy post-2022 (CAP). Much of the attention is now moving on the 27 Member States who will be in charge of implementing these regulations via the future National CAP Strategic Plans 2023-2027. […]
ARC2020 today releases a new report drawn from a policy event organised in Ireland during the Summer. This report compiles responses to a joint policy document on the future of farming and food in Ireland, adding farming, rural and policy perspectives to the collective voice of Ireland’s environmental organisations. Below read the intro and download the full report. […]
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. […]
The Common Market Organization (CMO), insufficient grazing subsidies and eco-schemes. An explainer about how EU dairy exports could increase rural unemployment and food poverty in Japan. […]
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. […]
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. […]
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. […]
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. […]
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. […]
A newly published paper seeks to reposition legumes as protagonists in policy debates and encourage us to identify policies that would better support the transformation of European food- and feed-systems to a new norm, with greatly increased production and consumption of homegrown legumes and homegrown legume-based products. A savoury account of legume policy by lead author Bálint Balázs. […]
There are “strong links between politics and the biggest beneficiaries of the subsidies” in five Central and East European member states of the EU. That’s according to a new in-depth study “Where does the money go”, which examines the implementation of the EU agriculture funds in Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania and the Czech Republic. The study, which was commissioned by the Greens/EFA political group in the European Parliament, sheds a stark light on how the CAP is not only funding degradation of biodiversity but also degrading democracy. Hans van Scharen reports. […]
Questioning unlimited growth in demand and emphasising the impact of societal pressures on productivity and yield, a new OECD report argues for more coherent and holistic farm and food policies. ‘As in other sectors, the economic interests pursued by food and beverage companies are not necessarily aligned with public interests’ the report states. Hans Wetzels has more. […]
Agricultural and Rural Convention