Newsflash
ARC2020 Newsflash May 2018
ARC2020 Newsflash May 2018
Articles by ARC
Latest from Brussels
ARC Exclusive – Auditors Heavily Criticise Commission’s CAP Plans
“Its longer-term vision for EU agriculture (taking account of long-term trends for technological, climate, societal and demographic change, etc.) is not apparent” So say the ECA – European Court of Auditors – about the European Commission’s CAP proposals in a damning new report seen by ARC2020. […]
Main stories
Ensuring an environmentally aware CAP: A battle of measures
Payment for Environmental Services (PES) is an oft-mentioned concept in post-2020 CAP debates. But it tends to overshadow the agri-environment-climate measures (AECMs) which have played an important role in the CAP for the past 2 decades. Which is the best way of integrating environmental concern? Frédéric Courleux weighs up the debate. […]
Main stories
AgtechTakeback – Technical Sovereignty and L’Atelier Paysan’s Tooled up French Farmers
A farm hack movement has emerged to really take the power back on the land in rural areas. In France this is especially developed, with L’Atelier Paysan empower farmers, using participatory methods, to devleop appropriate, affordable open sourced tools of the trade, machines and even buildings. Plus they throw great parties. Julien Reynier tells us more. […]
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How Capitalism Ruined Our Relationship with Bacteria
A totally new understanding of bacteria as a realm that we must live within, from which it is foolhardy to think we can escape, is needed. An important step in that direction is describing the destructive ways of thinking about bacteria that have stepped in between us and these necessary cohabitants of our planet. […]
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Recharging Soils with Carbon Could Make Farms More Productive
‘Farm land could work as carbon sinks,’ said Dr Jan Mumme, an agricultural engineer at the University of Edinburgh in the UK. ‘This probably wouldn’t work with intensive livestock farming, but sustainable crop production and integrated farm systems (a balance between crops and livestock) could do it – and biochar is one way to help.’ […]
Latest from key partners
AgtechTakeback | Digital Consolidation – Entrenching Agrichemical Companies & Industrial Ag?
Digital agriculture, broadly defined as the use of mass amounts of data to influence decision-making on farms, has incredible potential to make farms more economically and ecologically sustainable. However, it also poses risks to the privacy, profitability and independence of farmers. Jason Davidson is the Food and Agriculture Campaign Associate at Friends of the Earth (US). […]
Latest from key partners
An Agro-Ecological Europe by 2050: a Credible Scenario?
The “Ten Years for Agroecology in Europe” (TYFA) scenario developed jointly by IDDRI and the consultancy firm AScA, in collaboration with a scientific council composed of leading researchers, shows that a fully agro-ecological Europe, free from synthetic inputs and based on the redeployment of natural grasslands and the extension of agro-ecological infrastructures (hedges, trees, ponds, stony habitats), could sustainably feed 530 million Europeans by 2050. […]
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AgTechTakeback | Neither neoLuddism nor Corporate Ag – Towards a Holistic Agroecology
Will hi-tech save agriculture from its otherwise intractable problems? Certainly technological stakeholders want it to appear so, as digitisation increases both in the fields and in the policy documents and future plans for the sector. So what is the peer to peer and agroecological response to this? […]
Latest from EU Member States
AgTechTakeback | L’Atelier Paysan on Self-Build Communities in Farming
This is #AgtechTakeback. L’Atelier Paysan is a French cooperative that works with farmers to design machines and buildings adapted to the specific practices of small farm agroecology. In addition to distributing free plans on its website, L’Atelier Paysan organizes winter self-help training sessions, during which farmers train in metalworking and build tools which they can then use on their own farms. […]
Latest from Brussels
European Coordination of Via Campesina (ECVC) on Future of CAP
CAP should better support all of those who work the land and produce food, while helping develop agroecological practices. Read extracts from two European Coordination of Via Campesina (ECVC) documents on the Future of CAP. […]
Main stories
Letter From The Farm | High Nature Value in Ireland
How do you make the most of what is typically called poor land? Meet agroecologist and farmer Dolores Byrne from the north west of Ireland. And, meet a HUGE spider… […]
Main stories
‘Agroforestry’ may be new weapon in climate change fight
Agroforestry could play an important role in mitigating climate change because it sequesters more atmospheric carbon in plant parts and soil than conventional farming, report researchers. […]
Latest from Brussels
Climate Extremes Cause CAP Greening Rollback
CAP greening changes have been announced by the EU Commission because of drought However, these moves have annoyed some as they involve the cancellation of measures supposed to help make farming more resilient and robust in the face of climate extremes. And what will happen next, once this emergency passes? […]
Latest from Brussels
Vested Interests Fight to Keep Control of Agriculture Reform
Greenpeace EU agriculture policy director Marco Contiero with this op-ed tells us that a little-known panel in the European Parliament will rule later this week on a procedural issue that could make or break the EU’s most expensive and arguably most environmentally destructive policy. The leaders of the Parliament’s different political groups will end a bitter row between MEPs over which committees should be given a meaningful role in CAP reform. […]