Agrifood Brief

This week, EURACTIV speaks about the latest developments on the CAP and the timeline for this year, we explore the news that the Czech Republic is on its way to introduce a protectionist food law despite warnings that this could be in violation of the EU’s free movement of goods, and we speak with Green MEP Eleonora Evi about the differences between the EU Parliament and Commission when it comes to genetically modified crops. 

This week, EURACTIV's agrifood team speaks with Paul Kelly, director of Food Drink Ireland, about the impact of Brexit on the sector so far and what he sees as the key concerns for the future, and we explore what's on the menu for 2021, including the finalisation of the CAP and hashing out the details of the Brexit agreement. 

This week is EURACTIV's last podcast of 2020 - and what a year it has been. Here, we take a look at the agrifood highlights of 2020, including the unveiling of the long-awaited Farm to Fork strategy, the EU's flagship food policy, a re-CAP of the final CAP-down, and EU Agriculture Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski's tweets. 

This week, EURACTIV takes a look at the debate over live animal transport in the EU as the UK moves to ban the practice, we hear from Aneta Zachová from EURACTIV Czech Republic about the latest news on the allegations of fraud surrounding Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš and the agricultural company Agrofert, and we speak with Joan Calabuig Rull, regional secretary for the EU of the Government of Valencia, to hear the Committee of the Regions opinion on the EU's flagship food policy, the Farm to Fork strategy.

In this special edition of the agrifood podcast, EURACTIV’s agrifood team delves deeper into all aspects of EU agrifood trade - why it's is so important in the context of the general EU’s trade policy, what makes EU foodstuff and the European Single Market so different for trade partners, as well as the social, political consequences that come from closer trade relations. To bring you the nitty-gritty of the EU’s agrifood trade policy, we speak with a range of experts, from lawmakers to academics and NGOs.

This week, EURACTIV spoke with our very own digital editor, Sam Stolton, about digitalisation in agriculture, including the challenges involved with rolling out broadband to rural areas and concerns over data protection, we speak on the issue of food products using the term "natural", which is not legally defined by the EU, and we discuss the resolution of the latest CAP scrap. 

This week, EURACTIV spoke with Daniel Azevedo, Commodities and Trade Director of EU farmers association COPA-COGECA, about their recent report on the impact of COVID on the farming sector, and EURACTIV's very own Transport Editor, Sam Morgan, about transporting the EU's agrifood products via train and his musings about Greta Thunberg and scrapping the CAP. 

This week, EURACTIV hears about the reaction of the US farming community to the news of Joe Biden's win from Jonathan Ahl of St. Louis Public Radio, we speak about the EU taxonomy regulation and its implications for agriculture, and we explore the results from FoodDrinkEurope's annual report on the latest data and trends in the food and drinks industry with their director of communications, Will Surman.  

This week, EURACTIV gets you up to speed about the latest goings-on of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), including what to expect from the trilogue, which started this week, and we speak about the ailing EU honey sector, which is struggling on the back of severe climatic conditions. 

This week EURACTIV explores a new study which found that policymakers' failure to understand farmers' underlying motivations may be detrimental to the environmental ambitions of the CAP, how the recent cases of avian flu found in the Netherlands might impact trade, and how stakeholders are calling for agrifood SMEs to be given an extra helping hand in the COVID-19 recovery period.