Food chain sustainability Archives

A virtual meeting between German Agriculture Minister Cem Özdemir and the country's associations on Wednesday (29 June) kick-started the development of a sustainable and healthy nutrition strategy, though expectations differ widely on the details.

It is understandable that the EU is reorganising the fundamentals of its agricultural model in terms of strategic autonomy after the Ukraine war and the effects of both COVID-19 and climate crises, an official of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation told EURACTIV in an interview.

Lawmakers and stakeholders close to the agriculture community accused the EU executive of being disconnected from reality and creating additional bureaucracy after presenting new rules to curb pollution in the industrial sector.

Despite relatively low immediate consumption, European citizens assume a high quantity of soy indirectly mostly because of its use as animal feed, a report commissioned by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has found.

Commission Vice-President Frans Timmermans stood up for the Green Deal objectives in the EU's farming policy despite the calls of prioritising food security aspects in the wake of supply disruptions caused by the Ukraine war.

The European Parliament has declared foie gras production respectful of animal welfare criteria in a new report, despite previously demanding a ban on force-feeding, which was called “cruel and unnecessary”. EURACTIV explores what is behind this change of heart.

The French agriculture minister’s ambitions to link the upcoming pesticides directive review with completely separate legislation on maximum residue limits has confused stakeholders, some of who see it as a covert way to overhaul the current framework on pesticide tolerances.

Labour rights violations and environmental damage remain acute problems in European food production, as claimed by a recent report on the Spanish pork chain, which farmers have criticised as presenting a distorted picture.

With soil health high on the policy agenda, EURACTIV took a look at how advances in tractor technology can help boost climate-smart agriculture and promote no-till agriculture through the lens of a project in East Africa.

Of all the reasons why 2021 may go down in history, the first UN Food Systems Summit may yet have the longest-lasting impact worldwide, writes Agnes Kalibata.

The issue of vaccine hoarding and African vaccine production is likely to dominate the long-delayed EU-African Union (AU) summit but both sides want to beef up cooperation on agriculture policy as well.

The EU’s 2022 promotional policy will encourage a shift to more plant-based diets after branding red and processed meat a cancer risk, a move lambasted by the livestock farming sector but welcomed by civil society who stressed the need for more innovation in the plant-based sector.

A number of female agri entrepreneurs are not able to tap into their potential and scale up their businesses due to an unconscious bias among investors, according to Lukxmi Balathasan, business creation manager for EIT Food, who said that this results in a worse outcome for all. 

The European Commission, challenged by Italian EU lawmakers, has defended the move to grant €2 million from the EU's Recovery Fund to a research and development project designed to move forward in cellular agriculture and curb costs of lab-grown meat.

Agricultural productivity could decline if several studies on Farm to Fork policy impact are to be believed. But critics say the studies do not paint the whole picture and the EU's flagship food policy is on the right track.

By finding well targeted 'tipping points', a sustainable, resilient, and more equitable world food system can still be created, argue Simon Sharpe and Tim Lenton.

The wildfires that swept across Greece this summer have decimated the country's beekeeping sector, leaving it vulnerable to a barrage of cheap and potentially fraudulent honey imports, EU farmers’ association COPA-COGECA has warned.

The UK food sector has called for a new COVID-19 recovery visa to address workforce shortages, but the government has been non-committal, stressing instead it aims not to rely on labour from abroad.

German environmental organisations are calling for flood protection measures to be improved and for a change to the way agricultural soils are used weeks after catastrophic flash floods deluged the country and left more than 200 dead across Western Europe. EURACTIV Germany reports.

The European Commission has opened infringement procedures against 12 member states after they failed to transpose EU rules banning unfair trading practices in the agri-food sector within the allotted time frame. 

Stakeholders remain divided on promotional support for target markets and animal products, with NGOs calling for meat to be cut off cold turkey, while farmers argue no products should be off the table.

Although agri-food sector has recovered from the worst of the pandemic, it must keep one eye on the present and one on future crisis management, Slovenia's Agriculture Minister Jože Podgoršek told EURACTIV in an exclusive interview.

Fish stocks in the Black Sea are dwindling and commercial fishing is causing more and more environmental damage, causing concern that has grabbed the attention of NGOs and EU lawmakers. EURACTIV Bulgaria reports.