Brian Gardner's Blog

Archives for commodity markets

FLEXIBILITY NEEDED IN BIOFUELS POLICY

March 29, 2013

It is no surprise that a majority of EU government appear to be opposed to the European Commission’s proposal to limit the amount of food grains that may be used in biofuel production. Significantly, it was the central European member states that the recent Environment Ministers meeting demonstrated are most opposed to the Commission’s new… » read more

Posted by Brian Gardner

Food & Consumers

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CONFUSION IN BERLIN

February 4, 2011

Agriculture ministers, as some wiseacre pointed out long ago, are the last people who should be allowed to make decisions on agriculture policy. The truth of this sagacious insight was once again demonstrated by the recent gathering of G20 agriculture ministers in Berlin. Much of their deliberations should have been devoted to seeking ways of… » read more

Posted by Brian Gardner

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FOOD MARKETS NEED SPECULATORS

July 13, 2010

Speculators and speculation were generally regarded as one of the dark forces driving up prices during the recent ‘food price crisis’. According to some consumer and farm groups, speculation, especially by index traders, was responsible for making an already bad situation worse. As drought and depleted stocks drove up the world market in the 2006-08… » read more

Posted by Brian Gardner

CAP Reform, English, Financial Services, Food & Consumers

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Brian Gardner's Blog

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.

Post Brexit, new relationships between the UK and the EU and the UK and the rest of the world are a major pre-occupation. My book ‘European Agriculture: Policies, Production and Trade’ is a distillation of this experience. More recently, my analysis of the politics and technicalities of feeding 9 billion people by the mid-century is  ‘Global Food Futures – Feeding the world in 2050’, published by Bloomsbury. I continue to observe European  policy as it copes with the challenges of UK isolationism, Europe-US challenges, trade liberalisation, climate change and other environmental problems. My assessment of the realities for UK agriculture after 2020 are  set out in a recent report for Agra Europe: Preparing for Brexit.


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