Updates from EU Member States, including reports from ARC Web Correspondents
Illegal stocking levels have been uncovered at contraversial French Dairy Factory Farm Mille Vaches. Peter Crosskey Reports. […]
Eco Ruralis Bring us the Shocking Story of Forest Grabbing in Romania, where the vast majority of Europe’s Vital Old Growth Forests are. Fact Sheets, Leaked Letters and an Undercover Video Expose. #Forestgrab […]
Confédération Paysanne is mobilising to defend its right to peaceful direct action. Peter Crosskey explains. […]
Peter Crosskey digs deeper into the recent French food waste story. […]
After Communism, there has been an understandable suspicion of co-ops in Romania. Nevertheless, there are some, and farmers are benefiting. […]
Written by Attila Szocs, Land Rights Campaigner at Eco Ruralis This week, Romania received the formal approval from the European Commission for the starting of the National Rural Development Plan (NRDP) for the 2014-2020 time frame. This enables the Romanian Ministry for Agriculture, to launch all measures of the program. Formal declarations were made at the end of an official meeting in Bucharest, between Phil Hogan, European Commissioner for Agriculture and Daniel Constantin, Romanian Minister for Agriculture and Rural Development. A delicate matter was raised during the discussions. The Romanian authorities requested the re-designation of the “Less Favored Areas” (LFAs) of the country, given the fact that some of the provisions led to the exclusion of vulnerable areas which were formerly part of support plans. Commissioner Hogan underlined that the issue is known at an EU level but that “there is a regulatory problem which cannot be solved”. A paradox situation, given the fact that the Romanian Ministry for Agriculture accomplished the re-designation in the first place. LFAs are geographical areas where agricultural production is qualitatively and quantitatively […]
With UK elections coming up tomorrow, Joseph Dodd of GMO free regions explains the party positions on GM. […]
A combination of objective reality and strident direct action has seen fracking fade into oblivion in much of Eastern Europe. Good news for the rural areas where much of this would have occurred. […]
With the GMO free regions event in Berlin on right now, Ramona Duminicioiu assesses GMOs in the EU and Romania
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A group of Welsh hill farmers has successfully challenged a deeply unpopular ten-fold differential in proposed Basic Payment rates for upland. Less than a week before Christmas, the Welsh Assembly stepped back from a judicial review of its November decision to fix Basic Payments (BPS) at EUR 20/hectare above the 400-metre contour, compared to EUR 200/hectare below it. Ad hoc hill farmers’ group Fairness For The Uplands (FFTU) had secured a court hearing into what spokesman Tony Davies told journalists had become a “fiasco.” Farmers’ concerns over how the moorland line was to be fixed had not been understood, according to the FFTU, which advocates a fairer system based on productivity. Working with a landscape that can rise from sea level to 1,000 metres within tens of kilometres, Welsh hill farmers do not live by contour lines, even if it would have suited payment agency staff for them to do so. For the Welsh Assembly, the choice of a contour line avoids endless arguments about how to classify and support agricultural activity or disallow agricultural […]
On the 17th April 450 farmers demonstrated in the global day of action across Germany against TTIP (The EU-US free trade agreement) and genetically engineered crops. They marched together under the slogan of ‘TTIP and Gentechnik, bleibt uns vom Hof [TTIP and genetic engineering stay away from our farmers]’. The demonstation, organised by the AbL (Arbeitsgemeinschaft bäuerliche Landwirtschaft), sought to emphasise how the TTIP would threaten the livelihoods of farmers and would pave the way for the introduction of American produced GMOs. Find more information at: www.abl-ev.de
Whitmuir Community Farm, a few miles south of the Scottish capital Edinburgh is selling itself to the local community. Literally. For a couple of years now, Whitmuir Community Benefit Society has been selling shares in the working organic farm, with a view to securing the future of the educational work that already goes on there. “Transferring the land from private ownership to community ownership not only protects the long term future of the farm, but also allows greater collaboration with the educational and science sectors than is currently possible and enables the development of accommodation and teaching facilities on site,” explains Pete Ritchie, director of Nourish Scotland, who is currently farming Whitmuir with his partner, Heather Anderson. The process of selling shares was launched in 2013, with the first share being bought for then five-year-old Maya by her family. The launch event was also attended by the Scottish Parliament’s Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs, Food and Environment, Richard Lochhead (pictured below, with Maya). There are now 14 shareholders under the age of 16 and the […]
Where would you expect to find a completely automated dairy factory, where 280 cows are milked by four robots overseen by just two staff? The Breton town of Bréhan is home to this French factory farm, one of 27 listed in an online map published by Confédération paysanne (Conf’). The Conf’ has identified some of the most notorious factory-scale units so far in a list that is already extensive, with livestock units holding thousands of finishing cattle and thousands of piglets. One pig unit has applied to expand its herd to 3,000, despite being located in the middle of a Natura 2000 zone with an ecology that is home to flora and fauna of scientific interest. If the project at Loueuse (60) goes ahead, Cooperl will be spreading 5,000 cubic metres of slurry on 400 hectares. The public inquiry went in favour of the pig business Cooperl and the project will receive a final decision from the prefet in June. A factory farm for 4,500 finishing pigs at Heuringhem (62) received planning permission in March […]
According to recent figures released by Eurostat, Romanian agriculture is highly unbalanced. That is not the big surprise. In the last 20 years the country’s agricultural landscape was in a continuous transformation; agrarian reforms without a long term vision, real estate and agribusiness “cowboys” from all over the world speculating on low prices, productions focusing mostly on export commodities…all in a country of peasants versus their institutional neighbours. The surprise lies in how different stakeholders interpret these figures. Let’s have a look. According to the EU analysis, Romania is the 8th agricultural power of Europe and for the year of 2014 has an agricultural production estimated to 15.5 billion Euro (1160 Euro/hectare). Poland was the only other ex-communist country which outranked Romania having a 22.5 billion Euro (1660 Euro/hectar) production. The top ranks go to France, with its 70.5 billion Euro and Germany – 51 billion Euro production. Where is the great unbalance? Crop production amounts for 73% of the total, 26% being attributed to animal farming and only 1% represents agricultural services. On the […]
By Laetitia Nourry, Eco Ruralis intern on Food Chains Campaign 30 years after its setting up, the milk quota system is coming to its end. Europe is returning to unlimited production of milk where the benefits go to industrial farming. Another stab for the slowly disappearing peasant farmer. Milk quotas were set up in 1984 by the Common Agricultural Policy, to regulate the supply and demand and avoid prices collapse. So why lift them now? The reason is for economic. As milk consumption is increasing, especially in Asia (the demand of milk should double by 2022), the European Union definitely wants to keep its first place as milk exporter to the world. To reach this goal, one solution proposed by the EU leaders says that “farmers should be more aware of the market signal“. In other words, produce more milk, again and again, at the cheapest price. Hyper-production, exports, economic growth…but what is the price ? The end of quotas will indeed enrich big producers. Industrial farms will be able to produce milk in impressive […]
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