Recent updates Archives - Page 20 of 86 - Agricultural and Rural Convention

Flagrant Vagueness | Commission Launches a Vision Without a Strategy

July 5, 2021 ARC

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. […]

Patrick’s Rants – Agroforestry? It’s the Bees Knees.

June 27, 2021 Patrick Worms

Patrick Worm’s sets his sights on the armyworm, and how to cope with it. Turns, out, providing patches of natural and semi-natural habitats around farms can attract some of the many critters that are the armyworm’s natural predator. Trees are a handy technique to better manage crop and, bonus, not poison people the water or the soil. Patrick Worm’s is the Senior Science Policy Advisor of World Agroforestry (ICRAF) and the President of the European Agroforestry Federation. […]

How to feed an Island? Japan and the German CAP Strategic Plan

June 27, 2021 Hans Wetzels

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. […]

Organics, Agroforestry, Eco-schemes – for a Just Transition in Ireland

June 24, 2021 Oliver Moore

ARC2020’s Oliver Moore spoke to JOCECA – the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Environment and Climate Action – a Committee in the Irish Parliament. This comes just as the CAP trilogues start to finish, and as the Irish Parliament (Dáil) approves an ambitious Climate Bill which aims for 50% reduction in emissions by 2030. Below is a transcript of what he said. A longer version of an accompanying paper is also in the article. […]

Patrick’s Rants | Farming Communities. Cooperatives. They Rock.

June 21, 2021 Patrick Worms

Why should farmers consider community, cooperative approaches? What are the benefits to doing so – and what happens when more individualistic approaches are taken instead? In the first of our occasional contributions from Patrick Worms, this testing topic is grappled with. Patrick Worms trained as a molecular geneticist and is the Senior Science Policy Advisor of World Agroforestry (ICRAF) and the President of the European Agroforestry Federation. These rants however, are 100% Patrick’s own personal opinion, and are not necessarily the views of any of the organisations he works for or represents. […]

Western Balkans | Reviving Rural Areas & Moving Towards EU Integration

June 17, 2021 ARC

This week the second Balkan Rural Parliament took place in Ohrid, North Macedonia. Organised by the Balkan Rural Development Network, the Balkan Rural Parliament gives a voice to rural communities in the making of rural development policy for the Western Balkans. For EU accession countries, rural development is a key driver to accelerate the process of EU integration. The Parliament highlighted the need to strengthen mutual trust on every level between people and national institutions, as well as between the Western Balkans and the EU to build equal partnerships, writes Aleksandra Todorovska. […]

Letter From The Farm | Welcome To The Burren

June 11, 2021 Shane Casey

Welcome to the Burren in the West of Ireland, where Shane Casey’s family have been farming Blackhead mountain for some two hundred years. Here, the unique limestone landscape requires a unique way of farming. Traditions are passed down through many generations of Burren farmers to maintain the critical symbiotic relationship between farming and conservation. In his first Letter From The Farm, Shane takes us through farming in the Burren, past and present. […]

EU Green Deal | Good Food Good Farming Campaign To Get Citizens On Board

June 9, 2021 ARC

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. […]

France | Tasting Independence in Beaufortain

June 4, 2021 ARC

In this excerpt from the book “Rural Europe on the Move: A travel guide to transitions”, Philippe Barret tells the story of Beaufortain, a community in the French Alps that has been coming together to practice rural sustainability since the 17th century. Beaufortain also happens to be the home of ARC2020’s project to build rural resilience in France – “Nos campagnes en résilience”. In this chapter you’ll meet some of the key people involved in this latest venture: coordinator Valérie Geslin, volunteer Jeanine Sochas, and farmer Pierre Gachet. […]

UK | Pond Life Revives Hope for On-Farm Wildlife

May 27, 2021 Ursula Billington

Pond restoration yields dramatic results for nature. Seedbanks, dormant for 150 years, spring back to life; rare indigenous plants return within months. Invertebrate populations explode, significant for severely declining freshwater biodiversity. Insect chimneys attract huge numbers of birdlife and twice the species normally seen in the area. Ursula Billington reports on a farmer-inspired project to restore pondlife in Norfolk, UK. […]

Withdraw The CAP Movement Takes on Timmermans, Trilogues and Parliament Plenary

May 24, 2021 ARC

The Withdraw the CAP movement emerged in recent months to challenge Europe’s biggest policy spend. This initiative of young people, many climate strikers from the Fridays for Future movement, have taken the EU’s top brass to task over the gap between environmental rhetoric and business-as-usual reality. SO what happened at their meeting last with with Vice-President of the EU Commission Frans Timmermans, of EU Green Deal Fame. Here the group who met him give us the lowdown, and tell us what they are focused on next for withdraw the cap. […]

Letter From The Farm | Welcome to Ciasnocha Family Farm

May 24, 2021 Mateusz Ciasnocha

Welcome to Ciasnocha Family Farm – a 730 ha regenerative grassland farm in the Vistula delta of northern Poland. In his first Letter From The Farm, Mateusz Ciasnocha walks us through what’s involved throughout the year on his farm. But first, Mateusz gives us a whistlestop tour of the farm’s history over three generations, from Communism to CAP, and the transition to regenerative agriculture. […]

Letter From The Farm | Welcome to Mother Earth

May 20, 2021 Eygló Björk Ólafsdóttir

Welcome to Mother Earth – Móðir Jörð – an organic farm in Vallanes, East Iceland, where people have lived and farmed since the 12th century. Here, Eygló Björk Ólafsdóttir and Eymundur Magnússon grow grain and vegetables, and cultivate local food culture in their on-farm shop and café.

The couple are in many ways ahead of their time. In the seventies they helped bring back barley at 66°N. In the eighties they got started on planting one million trees on the farm. In the nineties, their farm was one of Iceland’s first to be certified organic. Now, with the season of the midnight sun almost upon us, Eygló shares her first letter from the farm. […]

New Genomic Techniques in the EU – on the Road to Deregulation?

May 17, 2021 Hans Wetzels

The European Commission wants to change legislation for biotechnology. Many in civil society fear an all-out deregulation agenda. ‘We have not announced a deregulation of new genomic techniques,’ the Commission rebuts. ‘But we would look at suitable regulatory oversight with very limited scope.’ Hans Wetzels presents an overview of developments in the regulation of new genomic techniques. […]

The True Cost of Britain’s Addiction to Factory-Farmed Chicken

May 14, 2021 ARC

The intensive poultry industry in the UK has expanded in recent decades, becoming more akin to the USA’s mega farms. Investigating how intensive poultry units have multiplied across certain parts of the UK, Alison Caffyn discovered that the poultry industry has taken advantage of weak regulatory and planning regimes to scale up the lucrative business. […]