The plight of milk producers supplying the dairy cooperative Arla in Denmark and Sweden was the lead article in my Danish newspaper yesterday morning. Interviews with a number of farmers supplying Arla highlighted their loss-making situation at current milk prices. The journalist writing the story highlighted that a number of factors were responsible for the current low milk prices: the Russian import ban on EU dairy products, lower import demand in China but also increased production in the EU which he attributed to the removal of milk quotas in April of this year.
That EU milk production has increased is clear, as shown in the figure below.
Greenhouse gas emission targets and Irish agriculture
Ireland faces a huge challenge in reducing its greenhouse gas emissions in the coming years. Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) Enda Kenny got into hot water last week for apparently saying one thing in his official speech to the Paris COP21 climate conference and another thing in unscripted remarks to journalists afterwards. Much of the subsequent controversy during the week revolved around the Irish government’s attitude to agricultural emissions and whether it was seeking special favours for the Irish agricultural sector in the current negotiations on setting national emissions targets for the period to 2030 in the framework of the EU’s 2030 Climate and Energy Package.
The EU has finally agreed to eliminate export subsidies…three cheers!
Export subsidies allowed EU exporters to grab market share in import markets from competing exporters, put downward pressure on the level of world market prices, and competed unfairly with local producers in many developing countries.
Gainers and losers from the CAP budget
These net transfer positions are not routinely published, although DG Budget provides the raw data in its annual calculation of the ‘operating budgetary balances’ of member states.
Will there be a CAP reform in 2017?
The CAP and biodiversity
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The 2013 CAP reform had three overall objectives: viable food production; sustainable management of natural resources and climate action; and balanced territorial development.
The intervention logic of the CAP
The three objectives set out for the CAP (which essentially ‘reinterpret’ the objectives contained in Article 39 of the Lisbon Treaty) are:
• viable food production, with a focus on agricultural income, agricultural productivity and price stability;
• sustainable management of natural resources and climate action, with a focus on greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity, soil and water;
• balanced territorial development, with a focus on rural employment, growth and poverty in rural areas.
Lost in Climate Change Reports
The UN’s next global climate change conference is fast approaching. Hosted by France, the conference aims to achieve a new international agreement on the climate with the aim of keeping global warming below 2°C. This is not a new goal as we know – the Copenhagen Meeting in 2009 also wanted to reach the same.
Those interested might find it useful to read some recent reports on the topic to keep themselves up to date. However, by starting with the probably most well-known ones (IPCC’s climate change reports), one surely realises that their language becomes very hard to understand. In a recent article, a number of scientists analysed the language used by IPCC and concluded that her studies have become less readable over time.
EU’s declining importance in agrifood trade

The table shows the EU’s share of global exports and imports of agrifood products, but excluding fish (SITC 03).
What biodiversity benefits can we expect from EFAs?
By 2020, maximise areas under agriculture across grasslands, arable land and permanent crops that are covered by biodiversity-related measures under the CAP so as to ensure the conservation of biodiversity and to bring about a measurable improvement in the conservation status of species and habitats that depend on or are affected by agriculture and in the provision of ecosystem services as compared to the EU 2010 Baseline, thus contributing to enhance sustainable management.