Photo by Jack Sloop on Unsplash MEPs responsible for environment policy have voted against proposals to give what campaigners call “industrial-scale cattle farms a free pass to avoid their responsibility in wrecking the climate.” Last month, MEPs in the Agriculture Committee voted to exempt industrial-scale cattle farming exempt from EU rules limiting industrial pollution. Campaigners said they agreed to this…
Photo by Brenda Godinez on Unsplash The European Parliament has been accused of “missing an opportunity” to acknowledge the need to include plant-based milks in the EU scheme subsidising school meals. In their vote ahead of the expected EU proposal, awaited for the end of the year, deputies were accused of “showing once again very low ambition to allow…
Photo by Kyle Mackie on Unsplash An ambitious overhaul of EU animal welfare laws is possible, reveals the Brussels-based publication Agra Facts. A leaked preliminary analysis written by the European Commission’s own civil servants is said to include the option to ban caged farming in Europe and to minimise animal suffering on farms, including during transport and slaughter….
Photo by Milada Vigerova on Unsplash The EU has been urged to help put an end to the world’s first commercial octopus farm. It is claimed that around one million octopuses will be reared at the proposed farm in the Port of Las Palmas in Gran Canaria, Spain. The plans have sparked claims that this will cause animal…
Russia has traditionally used food crisis as a weapon, and this is not the first time it has blackmailed the world community with the threat of famine. Failures on the battlefield in Ukraine have set a new goal for Vladimir Putin – to provoke a global famine and another wave of migration, which is why…
Photo by Justin Clark on Unsplash EU Member States have adopted an agreement to improve forest governance and help combat illegal logging in Guyana. The Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA), which the EU and Guyana signed in Montreal last December, aims to strengthen law enforcement in the forestry sector and ensure that timber products exported to the EU have been…
Photo by Ben Moreland on Unsplash Laying hens should be housed in cage-free systems, concludes a new study by the Union’s scientific body, the European Food Safety Authority, adding that meat chickens need more space and must come from slow-growing breeds only. The scientists confirm that it is not possible to provide sufficient space in cages. They also note that…
Photo by József Szabó on Unsplash Centre right MEPs say they want to postpone the law proposal on pesticide reduction in its current form because it will jeopardise European food production during the war in Ukraine. “When there is a war in Europe, we cannot do business as usual. The current law proposal is not fit for purpose”,…
Photo by Gabriella Clare Marino on Unsplash A coalition of over 50 organisations in 17 EU member states have delivered a petition to the European Commission demanding to keep the new generation of genetically modified organisms ‘regulated and labelled’. The petition ran from April to November 2022 and received 420.000 signatures. European Commission-president Ursula Von der Leyen announced…
Photo by Jo-Anne McArthur on Unsplash Eight EU countries have warned Brussels against proposing a ban on exports of live animals, according to a new document. The paper, written by Portugal and supported by France, Greece, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Spain, will be discussed during a ministerial meeting on 30 January. The group Compassion in World Farming says it…
