The European Parliament research service recently listed aquaponics – the symbiotic cultivation of fish and plants – as one of the ten technologies that could change our lives, producing local food without any chemical fertilisers, writes Robert Woods.
The EU organic logo brings certain guarantees about high standards of animal welfare, and EU institutions ought to show strong commitment to address weaknesses in regards to animal welfare rules, writes Olga Kikou.
Food security and global peace go hand in hand. The EU's proposed organic food regulation is not perfect, but it is a step towards the sustainable food system we need, write Claude Turmes, José Bové, Molly Scott-Cato, Martin Häusling, Bart Staes and Philippe Lamberts.
The withdrawal of millions of eggs from the market produced in the Netherlands and Belgium should motivate the EU to shift towards a different model of agriculture, argues Martin Dermine.
As the world focuses elsewhere, two untested varieties of genetically modified maize are slowly manoeuvring their way through the legislative hoops of the European institutions towards Europe’s fields, writes Mute Schimpf.
These are challenging times for meat lovers, with society exhorted to switch to organic food and limit its intake of meat. But European artisan butchers still have an opportunity to thrive, writes Yves-Marie Le Bourdonnec.
The EU’s post-2013 Common Agricultural Policy and EU other legislation must guarantee that organic and conventional farmers and food producers are no longer threatened by the risk of GMO contamination, argues Antje Kölling.
The European Commission's investigation of organic agriculture provides an opportunity for long overdue critical scientific scrutiny, so that agricultural policies can be based on knowledge and not on ideology, writes Professor Anthony Trewavas of the Institute of Cell and Molecular Biology at the University of Edinburgh in a May commentary.
