At the 10th anniversary of the event, Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission, has given today her second ‘State of the Union Address’ at the European Parliament in Strasbourg. This annual event is significant to demonstrate the European Commission’s accountability towards the EU’s democratically elected representatives, the Members of the European […]
The Commission has finally released a study on the impact of its F2F and Biodiversity Strategy proposals on the agriculture sector. The key commitments that directly affect the EU farming sector include reducing the use of chemical pesticides by 50% and of fertilisers by 20%, setting of at least 10% of agricultural area under high-diversity […]
The Summer months have been full of international attention to food policies: starting in July, with the to the UN Food System Pre-Summit held in Rome, where civil society, private sector businesses, decision-makers and other stakeholders met to discuss the issues of transforming the global food systems, in preparation to the Food System Summit to […]
While August has been a quiet month, July has seen some movements as regarding the Farm to Fork Strategy sponsored by the services of the European Commission. An unofficial impact assessment of the strategy has been published during the holidays considering the impacts of the targets on the EU agri-food markets, together with a report […]
In the summer months, genomic techniques have been the centre of some quite debates: amongst others, the US Department of Agriculture proposed to exempt some gene edited plant varieties from the biotechnology law; a study has analysed how these technologies are perceived by the public, concluding that the purpose for which are used plays an […]
The Green Energy Platform (GEP) welcomes the level of ambition and the fact that renewable energy from EU agriculture (i.e. biofuels & biomethane) is recognised as an essential lever for achieving the objectives of the draft « Fit for 55 » package, in particular for transport, which is the most challenging sector to decarbonise. However, […]
In June the agriculture Committee in the European Parliament discussed the Commission’s study on New Genomic Techniques for which many MEPs showed their support. Also, in Germany, the main political parties exposed their political manifestos and took public position on the matter of NGTs. Scientists from Freibourg University pioneered a method that allows for the […]
After the ‘Nestlégate’, which saw the Swiss food multinational admitting that a big majority of its products cannot be considered “healthy”, the UK is taking further steps in limiting the advertisement of unhealthy foods to children, and a pilot project for eco-label is planned to take off in the autumn, in France. Yuka, the food-shop […]
During the last decades, the European wine sector has been able to keep up with the increasing competition both in the domestic and in the world’s markets. It built its strategy on enhanced quality & productivity, while meeting higher environmental and sustainability standards which were becoming an always more important aspect of the product. In […]
Farm Europe welcomes the agreement on the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy reached today. It preserves the common dimension of this policy and it provides the means to give impetus to a real economic and environmental ambition, clearly improving the European Commission’s initial proposal.The tireless work of the Portuguese Presidency, of long-established MEPs such […]