The UK is about to go into Brexit negotiations with a political maverick, Brexiteer Michael Gove, in charge of DEFRA. Here are are a few of his predecessors’ contributions to posterity: […]
Michael Gove has taken over in the UK ministry which covers agricultural, food, rural affairs and the environment. He was central to the Brexit push and has links to US Neocons including the Tea Party – so he doesn’t seem too keen on environmental regulations. By Miles King. […]
French government report warns of problems for European agriculture after Brexit, while outlining priorities for CAP. […]
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. […]
Tom Lancaster, Senior Agriculture Policy Officer at the UK’s Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) assesses the uncertain terrain of the UK, farm subsidies and public goods post Brexit. In doing so, some interesting considerations emerge for the EU too. […]
In David Attenborough’s foreword to The State of Nature 2016, he writes: “…Nature is in serious trouble and it needs our help as never before.” The report singles out intensive agriculture and climate change as the two most serious threats to biodiversity in the UK. Agriculture still occupies 75% of the UK’s land area and the declining fortunes of mixed farming has led to consolidation and specialisation on a massive scale at landscape level. It is hardly surprising then, that the environmental impact of farming should be an issue of public concern. Look at this picture of a field with an over-wintered crop above: it is typical of thousands up and down the UK. Beneath the serried ranks of seedlings, criss-crossed with tracks that reflect the width of the spraying boom which passes periodically, countless farmland species struggle to adapt to what is often a hostile environment. The State of Nature editorial team identify earlier planting and regular spraying as important underlying factors in the way intensive farming impacts biodiversity. The study draws on long […]
UK mainstream media dubbed it a “food waste supermarket” when it opened in September, but The Real Junk Food Project’s first warehouse in Pudsey, Yorkshire, is unlike anything that most people would describe as a supermarket. To be sure, it has shelves loaded with supermarket food products, alongside fresh produce from allotments and surplus products discarded by a food photography studio, but there is not a shelf-edge price label in sight. Instead, users are invited to “pay what they feel” – either in cash or in kind. Local supermarkets have agreed to donate stock which they can no longer sell legally, but is still fit for human consumption. In so doing, they save the cost of disposal and The Real Junk Food Project can “feed bellies, not landfill.” The depot is the latest in a series of projects and pop-up cafés that tackle food waste head-on. The Real Junk Food Project network has members across the UK, France and Germany: contact details can be found on its website at www.therealjunkfoodproject.org By loading the video, you […]
UK prime minister Theresa May addressed he political party, the ruling Conservative party, at their conference at the start of the month. She tried to reassure the warring factions of that party that her plans for Brexit were on track. It’s clear she favours a hard – that’s complete – break from the EU, and not a soft – that’s partial – separation. […]
Andrea Leadsom, the new Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, faces an unenviable task: putting farmers out of business. Those that survive will rely on advanced pesticides and intensified, genetically-modified crops. […]
The UK faces the prospect of rethinking its agriculture from scratch during the Brexit process. Less than a month after the vote, farming minister George Eustice told BBC Wales that he could not guarantee future agricultural support programmes would be as generous as current EU subsidies. […]
As has been the case with the UK’s new post-Brexit referendum Ministers, the now head of farming, food, rural affairs and environment has made some unusual utterances in the recent past. Peter Crosskey let’s us get to know Andrea Leadsom a little better. […]
The UK’s new Minister with responsibility for farming and food may want to change how CAP and subsidies work. Pillar 1 type payments may be dropped and the delicate balance between farming and nature – especially on farms – may change radically. Miles King explains. […]
ARC2020’s President Hannes Lorenzen gives us his thoughts after Brexit.
After the Brexit bombshell, ARC2020’s Peter Crosskey tells us how the UK farming community is reacting to vote to leave Europe. […]
As the crucial UK vote on staying in or leave the EU edges closer, UK resident and ARC2020 columnist Peter Crosskey makes some observations about Brexit, agri-food, media bias and – importantly – Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty. […]
Agricultural and Rural Convention