Recent updates

Daily updates on whats new on the ARC website and in the CAP debate

Main stories

Responsible Digital Agroecology – from Farm to Fork

January 25, 2023 Véronique Bellon Maurel

How can innovations in digital agriculture ensure inclusion and equity for all actors in the value chain? What are the examples of digital innovations in agriculture that have already or will have a real impact on farmers’ work, quality of life and on sustainability? And how can we develop the relevant policies to foster the development of digital technologies and services that would ensure inclusion and equity for all actors in the value chain? Here, Véronique Bellon Maurel addresses these questions, […]

Latest from Brussels

Protest, Pesticides and the Parliament – European news round up

January 23, 2023 Ashley Parsons

Citizens voices are making noise in early 2023: Jan 21, in Berlin 10,000 turn up to march for a green, social agricultural future. And on Jan 19th, the EU Court of Justice announced the end of exceptions on the use of bee-killing neonicotinoids. Will the momentum spill over into the January 24th hearing at the EU Parliament? The Save Bees and Farmers citizens initiative will be presented and Members EU Commission Reps invited to exchange. […]

Latest from Brussels

COP out – all eyes on 19th Dec as Council aims to derail Pesticide Regulation (SUR) 

December 16, 2022 ARC

As Ministers meet in Montreal to pontificate about biodiversity, back home in Europe they are working hard to keep nature-destroying pesticides flowing. The EU’s attempt at updating the pesticide regulation – the SUR  – may be delayed by 6 months if Ministers get their way, making final passage more difficult. Scientists and civil society are now focused on the Council Meeting 19th December when the next delay of SUR may be copper-fastened. Ashley Parsons and Oliver Moore report.  […]

Main stories

Food Security at the Crossroads: an Exhausted Model or a Sustainable One?

December 6, 2022 ARC

What are the pressures on the agri-food system, what role does CAP and wider EU agri-food policy play, and how could things be different? Here, Spanish organisations outline their problems and solutions. Topics covered include many agri-food system imbalances such as fossil fuels, nutrition, ultra-processing/malnutrition, water, soil, waste, a lack of food sovereignty and spurious war prioritisations. The need for rebalancing and the potential of agroecology are proposed for a more sustainable agriculture. […]

Latest from Brussels

SURe to find excuses – MEPs, Ministers & their PPPs (Persistent Pesticide Proposals)

November 29, 2022 Ashley Parsons

After last week’s clear challenge to the SUR pesticide reform, this week the guns are blazing between MEPs and Commissioners pushing the reform. And in a familiar pattern in EU law-making, many Ministers are backing the business-as-usual block. Will we be reporting on the SUR until there are no more puns to be made? It seems that’s just what many politicians, with thier persistent pesticide proposals, want to enSURe. Ashley Parsons and Oliver Moore report. […]