Updates from EU Member States, including reports from ARC Web Correspondents
Conversion to agroecology: France’s hopes for environmental salvation is a new 28 page ARC2020 document on efforts in France to move farming from pesticides to agroecological methods. […]
Equality in the Countryside: a rural manifesto for the parliamentary opposition. A manifesto for rural equality launched by the Landworker’s Alliance at the Oxford Real Farming Conference 2016. […]
Aurélie Trouvé of ATTAC France released a book last year called Le Business Est Dans Le Pré (Business Is In The Meadow, subtitled How Agribusiness Is Drifting Into Crisis). ARC2020’s Peter Crosskey tells us about it. […]
EU farm incomes are down, but are plummeting in European powerhouse economy Germany. […]
A huge sell of of state land is about to happen in Hungary. Beginning 16th November, the Hungarian State will start selling a whopping 380,000 hectares of its land – by the end of the year. In just 44 days, this huge amount of land will be sold off into private ownership. But who is going to get this land? […]
In the bizarre world of ideologically-driven Tory self-harm, DEFRA is cutting itself into oblivion. How and why is this happening? Peter Crosskey investigates. […]
Brexit – US trade chief tells UK to “stay in EU”. Would TTIP lock the UK out of global trade, post #Brexit? And what does the EU do for the UK re agri payments anyway? […]
Like its failed predecessor, Ecophyto 2018, Ecophyto 2 aims to halve pesticide use in France during the coming decade. How will it fare? Peter Crosskey explores. […]
European Rural Parliament Manifesto Demands Equality & Participation, offers some hope and optimism for the refugee crisis, provided investment in rural areas occurs. […]
Knowledge Exchange Schemes and Needs of Young Farmers – how WWOOF Romania helps with the serious issues facing farmers. […]
By Paula Dragomir – Agrobiodiversity campaign assistant, Eco Ruralis On 24th-26th of September 2015, Eco Ruralis association participated in “Sow your resistance!” an international event in Lescar-Pau, France, which celebrated peasant seeds from all around the world. This event gathered more than 400 people from civil society movements and local NGO’s from Europe, Africa, South America and Asia. The event was co-organized by the Emmaus community of Lescar-Pau, the French network of peasant seeds Réseau Semences Paysannes and the French NGO for agricultural and social projects BEDE. The innovating, semi-autonomous village of Lescar-Pau – which produces 60% of the food needed by its 140 inhabitants – an extraordinary settlement and inspiring location for conceiving a different and better world. The various participants were involved in discussions, workshops, visits and debates. The program was rich and ambitious. The main demands were for: – Recognition of the indispensable past, present and future contribution of farmers and gardeners to the selection, conservation and renewal of agricultural biodiversity; – Respect and guarantee of the right of farmers to reuse, exchange […]
By Attila Szocs, Eco Ruralis Land Rights Campaigner Land grabbing in Romania is reaching a blatant level but mobilisation against it is scaling up too. On the 26-27th of September, 2015, Eco Ruralis hosted in Cluj Napoca the first meeting of a newly established Working Group on the Right to Land. During the gathering, Eco Ruralis members and supporters debated important land related problems faced by peasants and agroecological food producers: lack of transparency behind large land acquisitions, equitable access to land for young and future farmers and land policies oriented towards land concentration. The meeting specified future collaboration by the group in order to intervene on the issue of land grabbing and fair access to land in Romania. Defining land grabbing generated an interesting debate inside the group. Several criteria were raised, taking into consideration quantitative and qualitative indicators of what is a land grab. First of all, we noted the duality of the Romanian countryside, where more than half of the available lands are cultivated by small farmers, while the other part is controlled by companies and other actors. This obviously opens up […]
Ecological Focus Areas (EFAs) were supposed to be a core part of the greening of CAP: public goods – biodiversity protection – for public money – the citizens tax revenue. However EFAs were watered down to the point of near meaninglessness, we argued here in 2014. In this guest blog post by Sebastian Lakner, the poor biodiversity performance of EFAs in Germany is outlined. […]
250,000 took it to the streets on 10. october in Berlin for a huge ‘Stop TTIP and CETA – For a Fair World Trade!’ demonstration. Together many people from all walks of life protested against the free trade agreements between the EU and the US and Canada. […]
Most EU countries and regions have now declared their intention to not grow GM crops. In the UK, this means everywhere – except England, as Peter Crosskey reports. […]
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