Climate change, energy, water, food security and food safety, structural adjustments, multifunctionality, risk management, agribusiness and competition policy are the core long term challenges that European agriculture is facing. A conference held in Paris in January 2009 aimed to debate these issues and provide a handful of key solutions to be considered by decision-makers.

We need a complete and comprehensive scientific overview of the Common Agricultural Policy in terms of carbon emissions. In this article, I explore why.

The international agricultural fair held last week in Paris was the theatre for the last negotiations on the implementation of the Health Check in France. France is moving from the unfair distribution of EU subsidies towards a new, perhaps fairer, deal. But this new deal does not amount to a revolution before the decisive 2013 stage.

On December 11th 2008, a conference organised by CSO (BirdLife International’s Czech partner) and ProBio (the Czech organic farmers' association) addressed two questions: Where should the CAP move after 2013? And, how will it be affected by the revision of the EU budget?

Three fallacies are commonly encountered when talking about EU agricultural policies and the WTO’s Green Box for domestic support. It is argued that these fallacies are dangerous as they give a green light to supposedly Green Box compliant subsidies, legitimising their continuation with an international stamp of approval.

The EU Renewable Energy Directive, adopted in December 2008, represents a key element of Europe’s response to climate change, setting a much-needed target for 20% of our energy to come from renewable sources by 2020. However, the negotiations on the Directive also saw a bitter fight over biofuels, a battle that has ended up with a fudge, and more questions than answers.

The 'CAP 2013 group', which brings together French NGOs and agricultural organisations to debate the future of the CAP, has submitted its priorities for the implementation of the Health Check of the Common Agricultural Policy to the French Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, Michel Barnier.

Given the recent changes to the CAP instilled by the Health Check, I explore here whether the Nordic Aid Scheme can continue to be justified as a form of agricultural support.

This article examines the role of CAP measures in improving farm animal welfare. It draws on research conducted in Scotland.

On October 14th 2008, WWF-France and FNCIVAM (a network of French sustainable farmers) staged a conference on sustainable agriculture in Europe. While the Health Check of the CAP was laying the foundation of its future reform, the conference aimed to raise the issue of sustainable agriculture in Europe and in the world, and to consider environmental issues in the 2013 CAP reform.

At a time when dairy quotas are being phased out, the intellectual space opened by CAP 2020 allows us to think about the CAP in a ‘politically incorrect’ way. Against the dominant stream of thinking, we propose that quotas offer a potentially useful and powerful tool to deal with most of the challenges faced by the CAP.

The Agricultural Research Centre and the Estonian Ministry of Agriculture, in cooperation with three Finnish partners, organised an international conference entitled ‘Using Evaluation to Enhance the Rural Development Value of Agri-environmental Measures’ in Pärnu, Estonia, in June 2008. The aim of the conference was to bring together a range of stakeholders with an active interest in making more efficient and effective use of evaluation within the rural development policy-making cycle, notably regarding the evaluation of agri-environment measures.

Use the energy of your opponent to your own advantage. That is the beginners’ lesson in martial arts. But farm interests dug in their heels in the recent negotiations over reform of the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and resisted pressures for change as hard as they could.

Two major flaws in European Agriculture policy are that the agricultural budget is too big and that it is skewed in the wrong directions.

To bring about food that is healthier for people and the planet, CAP needs to become a “Sustainable Food Policy” .