News

AGRI will organise a hearing on Sustainable Plant Protection on 20 March from 15.00 to 17.30h in room PHS 3C050, Brussels. Five experts are invited to address Members: Mr Chinn, Centre for Applied Crop Science, UK, Mr Lembacher, Austrian Chamber of Agriculture, Ms Kienzle, Organic Fruit Growing Organisation, Germany, Mr. Alarcón Roldán, DG for Agricultural and Livestock Production of Andalucía and Mr Danielewicz, Institute of Plant Protection, National Research Institute, Poland.

Plans to tighten up official food inspections, from farm to fork, were adopted by Parliament on Wednesday. The new rules, already informally agreed by MEPs and the Council, aims to improve food traceability, combat fraud and restore consumer trust in the integrity of the food chain. Learn more .

According to the Bank of Rabobank, European livestock farms are growing. While total livestock numbers are trending downwards, an increasing number of dairy cows and pigs is housed on increasingly larger-growing farms. At the same time, the amount of available labour per animal has come down, enabled by ongoing mechanisation and modernisation. Learn more.

The Commission publishes its short-term outlook for arable crops, olive oil, meat and dairy markets in the EU for 2017-2018, confirming that the reduction in the EU milk supply at the end of 2016 contributed to a significant recovery in EU milk prices. In the last 4 weeks, prices of dairy products dropped (SOM - 4.4%, SPM - 4%, butter - 2%). This report has been prepared for the EU-28 under constant policy assumptions, with the Russian import ban assumed to be in place until the end of 2017. The report is available here.

On March 1, 2017, President Donald Trump released his first major policy statement on U.S. foreign trade relations. The Trade Policy Agenda blames America’s international trading partners for imposing “significant barriers” against U.S. agricultural exporters Learn more.