Newsflash

ARC Newsflash – April 2014

Dear friends and supporters, As Europe has thawed, the next months will be very exciting for our 2000m² project. Last Sunday, we planted seeds on the field in Berlin, and are looking forward to growing both the representation of the global situation, and the project itself.  More on that below. A few other highlights from March on ARC2020.eu: UK cooperative in fire sale of its farms: The UK’s food and farming sector is reeling with shock and disbelief as “Britain’s largest farmer”, The Cooperative, has put its farms up for sale. Ukraine’s Land Struggle with Russia: If 1 out of 3 agro-ecological zones would be removed from Ukraine’s possession, it would cause enormous consequences for farmers. Poland short-changes its organic farmers: Organic farming and agri-environmental schemes will not grow under current Rural Development plans. UN Rights to Food expert demands radical change: Olivier De Schutter warned that current food systems must be redesigned. The irony of national markets: cheap exports expensive imports: How our convoluted food system destroys food sovereignty. TTIP: how fat cats can turn nasty: Will the precautionary principle and other stalwarts […]

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Peter Crosskey

                          Peter Crosskey is based in the UK. Peter can be found at the Food Dimension and also at Features Execs. Recent Posts by Peter Crosskey Five-hectare payment threshold excludes one in six English farmers Where does your meat come from? UK reviving land settlement and local food production TTIP agenda threatens good intentions for UK local food UK agroecology centre taps into water research UK government to accept industry’s neonics research UK pesticide approvals: business, as usual Leave it to Tesco: how the UK ignores food security UK cabinet reshuffle kicks Paterson into touch Syngenta shelves attempt to overturn UK pesticide ban Bumblebees dying for a change in US pesticide laws NGOs’ dismay with CAP greening in Britain & Ireland UK ministry denies bullying food bank charity UK adopts just five EFA categories for CAP greening No offline plan B for UK CAP payments in 2015 TTIP EU advisory group meets for the first time Will CAP payments short-change UK Moorland farmers? Is […]

Newsflash

ARC NEWSFLASH March 2014

Dear friends and supporters, In March, the fourth round of negotiations on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) will take place in Brussels.  Since the last round of negotiations in December, more evidence the secretive nature of these negotiations has emerged, as reported by Corporate Europe Observatory: “In the 29 documents which were ‘partially released’, DG Trade has removed large parts of the text (…). In some cases, like a meeting with lobbyists from Fertilizers Europe, every single word has been removed from the document.” A glimmer of hope was offered at the end of January, when the Commission announced a public consulation on the so-called investor state dispute settlement (ISDS) part of the agreement. According to the official press release, the decision follows ‘unprecedented interest in the talks’ and in early March, De Gucht will publish a proposed EU text for the investment part of the talks on which people across the EU will have three months to comment.  We featured an opinion piece on thethreats the TTIP poses to Romanian peasants and farmers, and a prognosis of TTIP stakeholder […]