The latest edition of the newsletter from Agroecology Europe is now available. It includes the association’s position on the European Commission’s From Farm to Fork and biodiversity strategies, details of 2021’s 3rd Agroecology Europe forum and news from around the continent, including a feature on an innovative Belgian farmer.
Agroecology Europe has welcomed the Commission’s From Farm to Fork and biodiversity strategies as positive signals “of changes and improvements towards a greener and more sustainable and resilient Europe”.
In particular, it praises the way the Commission has paved the way for a “great environmental transition” having recognised the urgent need to reduce pesticide and antimicrobial dependency, reduce excess fertilisation, boost organic farming, improve animal welfare and reverse the loss of biodiversity, and the centrality of biodiversity and well-functioning ecosystems in boosting resilience and preventing the emergence and spread of future diseases.
“Like many, Agroecology Europe still considers these targets far from what would be needed to restore biodiversity,” it adds. “But let us be positive today and consider these strategies as a milestone, a turning point, the beginning of a shift of paradigm where sustainability, resilience and the environment will be at the centre of every future policy and legislation.”
Agroecology Europe’s 3rd forum will address ‘Agroecology for regeneration of our food systems and communities’ and is scheduled to run from June 9 to 12, 2021, in Barcelona, Spain. It is designed “to support exchange, reflection and bottom-up contributions, bringing together local farmers, universities, social movement organisations, local administrations and non-governmental organisations”.
In its ‘Stories from the field’ feature, the newsletter reports on Jean-Marie and Arnaud Velghe’s transition from a mixed farming system combining annual crops and dairy cattle to agroecology. Their farm in Peruwelz, Belgium, has grown from 20 hectares (ha) to 100 ha, has moved to a specialised cowherd, expanded the types of crops grown and has moved into cheese production, which is sold locally and through their farm shop.
“In one generation, a very small farm, created by an immigrant farmer, has become a large and efficient farm that is considered as an exemplary agroecological system,” reports Agroecology Europe. “It has innovated in various areas related to fertilisation, weed, disease and pest control, simplified tillage techniques, animal feeding, grazing system, grass/legume forage mixtures, forage conservation, conservation of forage, and the carbon storage in soils and the reduction of pollution. All this has also had a positive impact on biodiversity above and below the soil surface.”
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