Food is much more than a stomach to be filled, and actions on the ground in France are focusing on the social barriers to local, healthy food for all. Marie-Lise Breure-Montagne reports. […]
The European Commission’s legislative proposal for the deregulation of new GMOs – or new genomic techniques as they are also known – is to be delayed from June 7th 2023 until at least the latter half of that month. Mathieu Willard contextualises recent events surrounding the controversial proposal with an overview of the current GMO regulatory framework and the possible policy options hinted at in an impact assessment leaked by AGRA FACTS. […]
ARC2020, along with 28 other organisations, wrote and co-signed a letter on the unacceptable delays in introducing the EU’s pesticide regulation, called SUR (Sustainable Use of Plant Protection Products). Below is the full text of the letter, which was sent to Ministers for Agriculture, Environment and Health, the President of the European Parliament, AGRI and ENVI coordinators, and members of the AGRI and ENVI Committees. […]
“Rural Europe Takes Action – No more business as usual”, a policy guide for rural Europe by ARC2020 and Forum Synergies, launched in June 2022. Today’s extract from Rural Europe Takes Action tells the story of the Balkan Seeds Network, a network of scientists and seed savers’ organisations tapping into the rich biodiversity and agricultural heritage of South Eastern Europe to stimulate resilient food systems, and establishing a paradigm of collaboration for the Balkan region. […]
How can grassroots organisations tackle the issue of land access? What strategies and legal tools are available to them, and what real-life examples have worked? In this excerpt from the comprehensive toolkit recently published by Nyéléni Europe and Central Asia platform for Food Sovereignty, the authors note that despite the challenges, resistance is fertile – and present a range of tools that land activists can use to fight for a fairer world. […]
Today, April 17th, marks the annual International Day for Peasant Struggle. We’ve handpicked some of our top stories from recent years to give you an insight into the struggles facing European land workers and the resistance movements which respond to these. […]
Natalia Mamonova examines Ukrainian peasants’ responses to land grabs and agribusiness expansion. It discusses the post-Soviet context, forms of incorporation of the rural population in land deals, the lack of rural protests and mobilization, and the prospects for small-scale agriculture in the country. […]
A number of NGOs, farmer and consumer organisations have issued a joint statement in French and German, calling for a fundamental CAP reform. Read our exclusive translation. […]
Agroecology is about more than just affordable, ecological techniques – meet Olga Alcaraz, one of the women leading the movement forward. […]
Continuing in our series of CAP commentary from as wide a range of sources as possible, below we present the CAP position statement of MEP Martin Häusling. In it, he points to the folly of following an export and growth model for agri-food. Moreover, this model as it stands delivers little by way of environmental goods, or for animal welfare or the rural economy. He also emphasises the specific benefits of organic farming, while giving us ten points for major CAP reform. […]
In part three of this exclusive three parter on Spain’s internal CAP debate, Marta Zygadlo puts forward the dissenting positions from Spain’s CAP consultation position. The positions of two regions – Aragon and Navarre – and NGOs including Birdlife and WWF are put forward […]
In part two of this exclusive three parter on Spain’s internal CAP debate, Marta Zygadlo delves deeper into the substance of the position adopted by Spain with regard to the European Commission’s CAP consultation, focusing here on financing. […]
In this exclusive three part series, Marta Zygadlo – a lawyer in Spain working on food systems and food governance, explores the fascinating CAP debate in the Iberian country. Part one introduces the broad contours of the debate, including the Spanish government’s response document to the European Commission CAP consultation. […]
As the ECHA maintain”that the available scientific evidence did not meet the criteria to classify glyphosate as a carcinogen, as a mutagen or as toxic for reproduction” we take a look at how closely European politics and industry work together on pesticide regulation – and what this means. […]
Over 130 European CSOs and NGOs, including ARC2020, have today come together to demand better food and farming policies for Europe. The joint action, in the form of a Common Statement, coincides with a CAP consultation and the Agricultural and Fisheries Council meeting which starts at 10AM Monday 06/03/2017. […]
Agricultural and Rural Convention