Creating healthy and sustainable ecosystems in Europe is key to ensuring food security, as heatwaves worsen and Russia blocks grain exports out of Ukraine, the environment commissioner Virginijus Sinkevičius told EURACTIV.
The next decade needs to see a huge turnaround in the state of Europe's depleting carbon sinks and more incentives for farmers and foresters to capture carbon, if Europe wants to meet its climate goals, according to Ville Niinistö.
Europe’s push to decrease over-reliance on third-country food production is unavoidable due to the pandemic. Still, it could come in handy for encouraging African domestic production, according to the president of the UN’s Rome-based International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).
Europe's vision of the future of food systems needs to be improved with a focus on young generations, who will be putting into practice the Farm to Fork strategy (F2F), according to Riccardo Valentini, a prominent agricultural expert, who warned that "everything in this transition that is done without young people is a waste of money".
Ambitions to lower the use of antibiotics in farming must take into account the “massive” amount of variation between member states and also between species, according to a leading livestock sustainability consultant who also highlighted the pressing need to digitalise the animal health sector.
The EU's determination to become a global leader in sustainability will be matched by investments in solutions to deliver on the commitments set out in the EU's new food policy, Commissioner Stella Kyriakides told EURACTIV.com in an exclusive interview.
In an interview with EURACTIV's partner Le Journal de l'environnement, French socialist MEP Éric Andrieu (S&D) said that climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic make it necessary to put agriculture back at the heart of the debate and to change the agricultural model with targeted tools and resources.
The announced EU food policy should also strive to create future prosperity for businesses in good harmony with the environment, not only to take policies against some parts of the food value chain, Nestlé Europe chief Marco Settembri told EURACTIV.com in an interview.
Being equipped with the right methods to assess industry’s rapidly changing innovation will be a key challenge for the European Food Safety Agency, (EFSA), Bernhard Url, the EU food watchdog's chief, told EURACTIV.com in a wide-ranging interview.
With the new European Green Deal, all actors across the food chain will need to adjust to new EU standards. But policymakers also have to make sure EU industry is protected against unfair competition, MEP Maria Spyraki told EURACTIV.com.
Although member states will play a greater role in the future EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), it will not lose its 'Common' dimension as the Commission will continue to watch over the implementation of national plans, Commissioner Phil Hogan told EURACTIV.com in an interview.
Czech farmers have to invest more in processing agricultural products if they want to improve their position in an increasingly competitive environment, EU Commissioner Phil Hogan said in an interview with Aktuálně.cz.
Short food supply chains have a multidimensional role to play. They can help revitalise European farms by encouraging young people to work the land, but they also provide cheap and healthy food to consumers and attract tourists, campaigner Geneviève Savigny told EURACTIV.com in an interview.
“Mother Nature” is changing quickly and this requires the adoption of technology-driven solutions that will help both growers and consumers, Jim Collins, the chief operating officer of Corteva Agriscience, the Agriculture Division of DowDuPont, told EURACTIV.
What has been mixed in the current dual quality food conversation is ‘quality versus recipe’, as consumers have different preferences on sweetness and saltiness and we just have to accept it, FoodDrinkEurope leader told EURACTIV.com in an interview.
Simplified food label schemes like the UK-style traffic light will provide EU consumers clear and simple elements and therefore, better inform them, Marco Settembri told EURACTIV.com in an interview.
Consumers have a crucial role to play in reducing food waste, but change will have to take place at every stage of the supply chain, including a revolution in supermarket marketing practices, according to Olivier Jan.
EXCLUSIVE / Labour rights in the US must be improved before any potential TTIP deal is signed and Brexit’s economic impact is of concern, according to the chairman of the European Parliament's Committee on International Trade, Bernd Lange.
Droughts, poor land use and water access have all contributed to recent volatility in food prices and regional food emergencies. To address such insecurity in food supplies, good water management and governance – as well as reliable early warning systems – are needed, says Jens Berggren, who heads World Water Week that begins on 26 August in Stockholm.
Guy Riba, the deputy director of the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA), highlights the many challenges the world will have to meet by 2050 if it wants to feed its nine-billion inhabitants without destroying its environment. He spoke to EURACTIV ahead of a major conference by the French Presidency today (3 July) in Parliament.
While the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) does foresee an end to the current commodity price crisis, it underlines that the consequences will be visible for decades to come as children who have suffered from deficiencies in food, for even a couple of months, will never really recover. Von Braun was speaking to EURACTIV in an interview.
Low income households are increasingly turning to cheap packaged and fatty food, warns Jaap C. Seidel, a nutrition and health professor, inisisting that EU agricultural subsidies should to be turned round to make fruit and vegetables more affordable.
