While everyone has been getting ready for the end of the year festivities, it is worth mentioning that the US’s Congress has just passed last week its $900 billion COVID-19 relief package. Evidently, this includes a new round of aid to a wide array of agricultural sectors and farmers on top of the previous packages, […]
In the second half of November, several EU countries have adopted recovery plans for coping with COVID-19-related impacts on the agriculture sectors. At European level, agriculture and fisheries ministries drew conclusions on various sectors affected by the pandemic during first and second lockdown during a meeting on November 16th. full note in FE Members’ area
The month of November has been marked by several reports published an animal welfare, as well as a meeting of the Committee of Inquiry on the Protection of Animals During Transport (ANIT) where issues related to animal transport were discussed on November 20th. On a European level, much discussed topics were the fast spreading bird […]
During this month the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA) published two opinions on synthetic gene drivers techniques and on gene editing techniques. On the former, the agency believes that existing guidelines are sufficient for evaluating risks associated with technology, but further guidance is needed; on the latter, the EFSA assessed their safety. Researchers from the […]
The month of November 2020 has been marked by some major developments in the CAP on-going negotiation among the European institutions. Notably, on November 10th the trilogue session kicked-off the interinstitutional discussions on the three legislative files; it was reached an agreement among the co-legislators on the Recovery plan for the agricultural development (including €8.7 […]
Today, 2 December 2020, French, Italian and Spanish wine cooperatives have organized a public debate together with the European Think Tank Farm Europe on the future of wine sector. Angel Villafranca, President of the Spanish agrifood cooperatives introduced the seminar underlining the role of the Spanish, French and Italian cooperatives which represent more than 50% of all European wine production. Afterwards, Pau Roca, Director […]
1st December 2020 The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and the Green Deal (GD) are two of the main flagship European policies that define the current state of play of the institutions. They are different policies, both regarding the timing (the former has been a flagship policy of the EU for almost 60 years, the latter […]
Public health issues concern people and States. The former is often exposed to an unbalanced and lacking information system, whereas the latter have been trying to fight against spread health problems and diseases, given the top-priority that the matter has gained in most, if not all, governments’ agendas. Indeed, in past decades public authorities proposed […]
The Commission proposals on the Farm to Fork and Biodiversity Strategies have been released without any impact assessment – on the agriculture production, on prices, on the trade balance, on food security. It is worth quickly reminding which their key targets were, to be achieved by 2030: 10% agricultural land set-aside -20% chemical fertilizers -50% […]
The European Commission recently published its Renewable Energy Progress Report[1] in which it highlights the positive contribution of domestically sourced biofuels in reducing GHG emissions. The Commission assessment clearly asserts the sustainability of biofuels produced from EU feedstock, invalidating its concerns relating to land use or food security and demonstrating them to be wholly unfounded […]