The European Union has for a long time viewed agriculture and food systems as a monolith. However, as Europe has expanded to 28 member states, so the actual diversity of businesses has rendered the idea of a single model obsolete.
The multiplicity of markets has profoundly modified the relationships between agricultural producers, the processing industry, retailers and consumers.
Strategic priorities: organic farming and livestock The Plan recognizes the importance of organic farming to contribute to the achievement of all environmental objectives; indeed, the sector is allocated about 2.5 billion euro in the five-year period within the rural development. The allocation already foreseen by rural development (1.5 billion euros) is in fact integrated with […]
Rising production costs for all agricultural sectors, particularly livestock, are a concern. Many sectors are demanding higher producer prices and improved farm incomes. Opportunities have developed for some UK livestock sectors as a result of Brexit. In Ireland, however, the vote by MEPs to ban the transport of very young animals is described as a […]
The BECA Committee on Beating Cancer has finally approved the report on the European strategy to fight against cancer. Nutrition is not addressed as much, despite the important role that plays in preventing some type of cancers. Lab-grown meat industry, at the same time, is on the rise, with more million invested in the business […]
In the two past months the European Commission has proposed two legislative initiative packages, notably the Carbon farming initiative and the Soil strategy. The former is about creating a remunerative system for farmers to incentivise the stock of carbon into soil, borrowing the logic of the ETS system already into place; while the former is […]
During her intervention in front of the plenary session of the European Parliament, Health Commissioner Kyriakides stated that the Commission has not yet taken a decision on front-of-packaging labelling, refusing rumours that the Nutri-Score is the favoured option. Member Stated have decided to ban, starting in 2022, food additive E171 after consistent studies have underlined […]
October marked the adoption of the Farm to Fork strategy as a shared European strategy, and not only a European Commission’s initiative. In fact, the vote of the European Parliament on the texted agreed by the joint ComEnvi & ComAgri Committees confirmed most of the Commission’s vision of the future of European agriculture and the […]