The scientific community has welcomed the results of more than 20 years of research that led to the completion of the sequencing of human genome. The discovery corrects thousands of structural errors in the previous reference genetic material. In the EU, NGOs (notably in Germany and Austria) are keeping the media attention high on the matter […]

EFSA has published its final scientific opinion on nutrient profiling, an opinion that will influence the dossier of the front-of-package labelling initiative that the Commission is supposed to advance during the third semester of 2022. Furthermore, the same EU agency approved for human consumption a ‘novel food’ consisting in new protein-rich supplement.  While a study […]

While the conflict between Russia and Ukraine is going on in the East of Europe, agricultural markets are still suffering its consequences, notably in the price raise of fertilizers and the possible shortages on the cereal markets. The EU institutions are discussing alternative solutions to the short-term problems that the conflict is creating within the […]

The crisis in Ukraine is having a major impact on the livestock sector, particularly through the rise in input prices and the shortage of certain feeds. The first consequences are higher production costs on all markets and higher inflation. Thus, not only farmers, but also processors in the sector and consumers are affected by this […]

While in Italy and in France, the scientific community is calling on their governments to ease the regulation on plants derived from new genome techniques and that times are ready to move forward, in England the Parliament has approved legislation that ease the acceptance of gene-editing field trials, and Kenya adopts guidelines on genome-editing techniques […]

The war in Ukraine has opened discussions on targets of the Farm to fork strategy, with institutional figures taking opposite sides. Notably, the Commission (Timmermans, Kyriakides) is still defending the objectives of this strategy, arguing that the renewed call on EU independence from, for instance, fertilizers and pesticides imports is very topical and that the […]

In the context of the French presidency of the EU and the upcoming French presidential elections, two French doctors called for the next President to establish a real, coherent, and efficient European nutrition strategy that should find its basis in education and, notably schools as a tool to address the obesity pandemic and reverse the trends in childhood […]

In the face of the conflict in Ukraine, the month of March was punctuated by government announcements of new sanctions against Russia, and decisions by businesses and citizens to boycott certain products from Russia. The conflict is nevertheless threatening the production of certain crops, notably barley, for which producers fear a shortage and warn of […]