As part of our rural sociology RETHINK Modernisation series, we present an article on prosperity. What does it mean in the rural context? Is it about income, or is there more to it than that? […]
Fertilizer, herbicide and GM crops. 24th October 2017 saw not one but three significant votes in the European Parliament on each of these topics. Considering how these plenary votes went, it may be the case that, when it comes to agri-food policy matters, the tide is turning. So what happened, and what’s next? […]
Over 200,000 European Citizens have signed an ECI petition calling on the EU to protect its soil. What does this mean, and what might happen next? […]
Farms have to be viable economically to survive and indeed thrive. Nevertheless, as the years pass, it’s worth thinking about how the farming life is lived. Stress, workload, debt – how do these impact on wellbeing? […]
The issue of “land sparing vs land sharing”: Kremen poses the familiar refrain – should we be as productive (in terms of yield) as possible, thus leaving more land for nature, or should we try to get farming and nature to work better together? […]
Mainstream UK media have presented Brexit minister David Davis (left, without negotiating papers) as the public face of the country’s progress with Brexit talks. However, the press has studiously overlooked the back-room activities of the international trade minister Liam Fox, who has been rolling up his sleeves and starting to size up Tariff Rate Quotas (TRQs) held by the European Union at the World Trade Organisation (WTO). In an extraordinarily wide-reaching plan described as a “Technical Rectification”, Fox is planning to unilaterally carve out what he judges to be the UK’s share of TRQ tonnages for third country imports such as New Zealand sheepmeat and register the results with the WTO. The story emerged thanks to Sky News journalist Faisal Islam, but only because the TV chain was filming Fox in action at the WTO headquarters in Geneva. In the past, technical rectifications have been more limited in scope, but this editing is on an industrial scale: Fox is not waiting for Davis to get round to discussing trade with the European Commission before trying […]
As Brexit negotiations open, a report makes for worrying reading on the implications for food and farming. Interconnected problematic situations await the UK, yet there seems to be precious little of agri-food planning being done. Food Brexit: Time to Get Real Finds. […]
A vote in the European Parliament this coming Wednesday 14th June will be crucial in deciding whether pesticides will be banned from Ecological Focus Areas (EFAs). It is a simple majority vote by MEPs, and it is likely to be tight. Here we outline what you can do, make the case for keeping pesticides out of EFAs, and myth bust some common misconceptions on pesticides and EFAs. […]
The CAP consultation is complete, and the results are in. So who participated, and how representative was the process? Here ARC2020 presents the top three key insights from the information available so far. […]
Using a recent document by the Commission on Ecological Focus Areas – EFAs – this long read traces the story of The Common Agriculture Policy’s EFAs. EFAs are up for discussion and consideration once again, as current Commissioner Phil Hogan seems intent on banning pesticides from these areas. They may, after all, emerge as a way to protect biodiversity and the ecosystem and agri services nature provides. In four parts. […]
An upcoming EU seminar on the potential for results-based agri-environment schemes – or High Nature Value farmland – is happening Thursday, 30th March. In advance, Dolores Byrne outlines the case for HNVf.
Slavery still exists in the EU, with some horticultural produce coming from places with extreme, inhumane working conditions which fit the International Labour Organisation’s definition of forced labour. There are ways to start dealing with this, at policy and local levels, including via community supported agriculture. […]
With Brexit, migration and veg shortages, now is a great time to better understand who picked Britain’s fruit and veg in the past. We take a trip with Caroline Nye, encountering 14th Century Irish and modern day Ukrainian migrants. […]
Food waste is a scandal – in more ways than one. We have somehow allowed a food system to develop that lets supermarkets off the hook – it’s their policies and practices that generate food waste in the first place. […]
Alan Matthews assesses the terrain of competing forces in CAP reform, before suggesting some radical changes post 2020. […]
Agricultural and Rural Convention