August 28, 2013
The idiocies of the food miles thesis, the idea that every nation should seek self-sufficiency in food production to save the planet from global warming have received a further boost from the UK’s National Farmers Union. In what must rank as one of its most misguided publicity stunts, the Union is urging the British people… » read more
Posted by Brian Gardner
July 29, 2013
The end of what might be described as the bad old common agricultural policy based on expensively rigged markets was recently marked by what should be the final removal of export subsidies on agricultural commodities. For over fifty years these subsidies have been a major mechanism for maintaining high farm prices in the European Union.… » read more
Posted by Brian Gardner
July 23, 2013
The European Parliament’s somewhat frenzied concern about the possible indirect land use change (ILUC) resulting from EU biofuel policies is a splendid example of the phenomenon of unintended consequences. While acting on the basis of some pretty questionable science, the MEPs are constructing a new form of protectionism which is likely to damage the interests… » read more
Posted by Brian Gardner
April 12, 2013
Whatever governments may or may not agree on GHG emissions, the one thing that is likely is that average global temperatures will continue to rise. What is also likely is that the world’s food production capacity will be affected by the change that temperature rises will create. There is however no consensus on what the… » read more
Posted by Brian Gardner
February 26, 2013
The European Union’s biofuels policy is an outstanding example of the working out of the so-called ‘law’ of unintended consequences. At the time of the biofuels policy’s birth, the advantages of encouraging the conversion of food crops to ‘green’ fuel seemed obvious. In the mid-1990s Europe and the developed world generally were awash with surplus… » read more
Posted by Brian Gardner
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Climate Change, Environment, Food & Consumers , agricultural policy, biofuels, Climate Change, food prices, GHG emissions |
December 20, 2012
If an increasing world population is to be adequately fed, food production has to be increased. Estimates vary on just how big the increase has to be. They range between increases of 45-50 per cent on the optimistic side, to the worst case scenario of over 80 per cent by the mid-century. What most analysts… » read more
Posted by Brian Gardner
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Climate Change, Environment, EU Priorities and Opinion, Food & Consumers , agricultural production, agricultural science, food production, food supply |
March 24, 2010
World meat production is not the major contributor to green house gas emissions claimed by certain sectors of the green and vegetarian movements . Experts at The UN food and Agriculture Organisation have conceded that earlier accusations of an 18 per cent share of total AGHG were considerably inaccurate. Writers of the FAO’s famous –… » read more
Posted by Brian Gardner
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CAP Reform, Climate Change, English, Environment, Food & Consumers, Sustainable Dev. |
March 8, 2010
The impact of biofuels on food supplies present and future is one of the latest worries of the environmental lobby. Once favoured a s a means of reducing finite fossil fuel dependency, it is now seen as snatching basic foods from the mouths of the poor to feed the fuel tanks of the affluent. The… » read more
Posted by Brian Gardner
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CAP Reform, Climate Change, Energy Supply, English, Environment, Food & Consumers, Sustainable Dev. |
Commentary on European developments from the perspective of long term professional interest in European and international trade, agriculture and food policy, nurtured over three decades spent in Brussels observing and analysing the development of the CAP.
