Earlier this week BBC’s Newsnight aired an extended feature on how overseas farmers are bringing the investment that’s transforming Ukraine’s agriculture into vast arable mega-farms. There is no doubt that Ukraine, with its vast expanses of fertile land, has the potential to make a valuable contribution to the global supply of food. Let’s hope they [...]
Tag Archives: cereals
Trends on the EU rice market
There was a fundamental reform of the EU rice market in 2003. The intervention price was cut in half to bring it down to the (then) level of the world prices, and producers were compensated by an increase in direct payments. An important impetus for this reform lay in the market opening offer by the [...]
UK wheat can compete – so does it need subsidies?
Russia and Romania may be two of the cheapest places in the world to produce wheat, but the UK is only a little way behind. Releasing the result of its Global Cost of Production Challenge, Bidwells Agriculture head of research Carl Atkin, said that despite the higher unit price of inputs in the UK, cost [...]
US farmers want out of conservation, environmentalists resist
The current high prices for arable crops mean that farmers in the US and Europe are reconsidering whether putting their land into government-financed conservation schemes is such a good idea financially. The EU is well on the way to releasing all its set aside land back into production, and in the US Congress is considering [...]
The mixed up world of US Senator Chuck Grassley
We all know that the legislators who write US farm policy are not the brightest bulbs in the box. Even so, Senator Chuck Grassley treated us to an unusual insight into his own very special, mixed-up world during a telephone press briefing last week, reported in the Des Moines Register. Asked about the contribution of [...]
Set-aside: ensuring the environmental benefits
Ariel Brunner in a recent post lamented the fact that the EU has proposed to set the rate of compulsory set-aside to 0% for the 2008 harvest without putting in place alternative measures to secure the environmental benefits which set-aside land provides. The reason why the decision only concerns autumn 2007 and spring 2008 sowings [...]
Set aside: act now, think later…
Following a Swedish proposal and widespread support in the Agriculture Council, the Commission announced the intention to set the level of compulsory set aside at 0% for the 2008 harvest. This is bad news for Europe’s wildlife and suggests a disappointing level of commitment to environmental sustainability on the side of the EU and its [...]
Biofuels may push up beer prices
I was giving a presentation on the CAP during this week and I was asked if ending it would threaten food security in Europe. My reply was that no one was advocating dismantling the CAP overnight, so any adjustments would be phased in, but that the real challenge to food security came from the rapid [...]
