Kazakhstan is a growing market opportunity for European agricultural food and beverage exports, says Wojciechowski, underlining what he hails as the emerging importance of an evolving EU-Kazakh relationship.
Investors champion biotechnology with AI as the engine of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, but despite Europe’s strong ambitions biotech analysts say legislation designed for chemicals is not fit for the biological. The result is an exodus of talent and investment.
Pig producers across the EU should deliver higher welfare standards than the EU Pig Directive currently requires, say activists who are now calling for better practices and additional measures to ensure pig welfare.
Europe’s citizens called for an end to the ‘cage age’ with the phasing-out of cages and crates for farm animals. The European Commission agreed but now says more consultation with farmers is needed. The ECJ will calm the coop.
On Tuesday 23 April, the plenary gave its final approval to extend the liberalisation of imports from Kyiv, including measures to protect EU agriculture and the pledge of the Commission to start talks soon with Kyiv for a permanent solution.
To reduce the carbon footprint of food, all stakeholders, including farmers, companies, and regulators, need to collaborate on solutions which drive demand towards sustainable products.
The European Parliament’s Agriculture Committee (AGRI) voted on Tuesday (19 March) to loosen rules on marketing seeds and plant reproductive material for conservation purposes and informal exchanges between farmers.
7000 annual air pollution deaths, 10,000 km2 of acidified water and 150,000 km2 of algae blooms. These are just some of the extra impacts by 2040, if the Commission does not manage to curb agriculture’s environmental impact.
The European Parliament adopted changes to the regulation for prolonging trade liberalisation measures with Kyiv, backing EU farmers' demands and overthrowing the prior vote in the trade committee that rejected the amendments.
EU negotiators reached a deal on Tuesday morning (5 March) on a new regulation aiming to ban products linked to forced labour from the bloc’s market, with potential implications for agricultural and food commodities produced in and outside the bloc.
Farmers’ protests making the headlines these days brought back agriculture in the EU political agenda.
Europe’s 340 million pets are unlikely to swing this year’s European elections, though with cats, one can never be sure. Jennifer Baker looks at Europe’s animal-related policy dynamics and how they could influence June’s electoral mix.
Farmers blocking roads and torching political hubris. February got off to a blazing start. Belgium, France, and Germany came to a standstill, as President von der Leyen lauded their essential economic role. A high-stakes game of chicken has ensued.
Europe’s Herculean efforts to reduce energy reliance on Russia have not been matched when it comes to fertiliser. The European Council’s hesitation to add fertilisers to Russian sanctions is putting Europe’s fertiliser industry at risk of catastrophe.
Despite the potential for nature restoration to bring benefits for multiple sectors across Europe, the funding gap remains immense and urgent. With 19 international organisations, we’re proposing a new funding model: “Landscape Finance”, a financing approach that supports holistic, community-driven landscape restoration.
In a letter sent on Wednesday (31 January), France's Greens called on President Emmanuel Macron to form a coalition with EU countries that also oppose the EU-Mercosur deal in its current form - an idea Macron's camp has already dismissed as hopeless.
In the face of growing protests by farmers, the European Commission officially proposed on Wednesday (31 January) introducing safeguard measures to cap Ukrainian food imports and accepted France's proposal for a partial derogation from the fallow-land obligations for farmers.
Ongoing farmers' protests can be partly attributed to the lack of consideration EU society and policymakers give to agriculture in general and geopolitical terms, Sebastien Abis, director of the agricultural group Club Demeter and research fellow at thinktank IRIS in France, told Euractiv.
As nationwide farmers' protests continue, the German government wants to have the market power of supermarkets and the food industry scrutinised, blaming their price-setting power for the poor economic situation of many farms.
French 'farmerfluencer' Étienne Fourmont, who is using his YouTube and social media to make farmers' voices heard at a time when they are protesting heavily in France and the rest of Europe, told Euractiv about the urgent need to change the way farming is viewed.
The leader of the recently-founded "Alliance Rurale" party in France, Willy Schraen, told Euractiv in an interview that if he is elected as an MEP, he aims to create a 'rural affairs' group in the EU House with like-minded lawmakers.
Germany saw an average of ten farms go out of business every day in the last decade, according to the German government's agricultural policy report, which has spurred associations and the opposition to call on the agriculture minister to take action.
Mineral fertilisers boost crop yields thus helping to feed 50% of the global population. However, the production is currently based on fossil fuels. Several technologies have been identified to decarbonise fertiliser production. But while low-carbon fertilisers look promising, cost, regulatory framework and scale stand in the way of widespread adoption.
After the surprise failure of the year-long negotiations between the EU and Australia for a free-trade agreement, representatives of Germany’s export-oriented industries strongly criticised the disproportionate influence of agricultural interests on trade deals.
