Agriculture
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20 January 20124PresseuropEl País
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15 December 2011PresseuropEl País
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13 October 2011PresseuropPresseurop
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9 September 2011The New York Times New York
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Environment
'Clean' energy, scourge of our countryside
18 August 20118La Repubblica Rome -
8 August 20111Polityka Warsaw
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2 August 2011NRC Handelsblad Rotterdam
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Ireland
Turf cutters against the EU
23 June 2011The Guardian London -
E.coli panic
Madrid accuses Brussels of stinginess
8 June 20111PresseuropLa Razón -
23 February 2011PresseuropDziennik Gazeta Prawna
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Subsidies
New CAP to occupy middle ground
19 November 2010PresseuropLibération -
EU Budget
If the CAP fits, wear it
18 November 2010Svenska Dagbladet Stockholm -
Fishing
Sweden and Denmark lock horns
15 November 2010PresseuropGöteborgs-Posten -
6 August 2010PresseuropGazeta Wyborcza
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Romania
A veritable banana republic
21 July 2010PresseuropRomânia libera -
Austria
EU threatens home-farm bacon
24 March 20101PresseuropDer Standard -
3 March 2010PresseuropLe Soir
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Livestock
Castrating piglets is offal
22 February 20101De Morgen Brussels -
Agriculture
GMOs in Barroso’s basket
15 February 20101Adevărul Bucharest -
26 January 2010PresseuropTo Ethnos
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Romania
A Happy and costly New Year
4 January 2010PresseuropRomânia libera -
Wine
War of the Tokays
23 December 2009Polityka Warsaw -
Portugal
Nearer my cod...
15 December 2009PresseuropPúblico -
Livestock
Netherlands battles with Q fever
10 December 2009PresseuropNRC Handelsblad -
CO2
Toxic farming
23 November 20091Le Figaro Paris -
17 November 20091International Herald Tribune Paris
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DAIRY CRISIS
Milk industry going teats up
20 October 2009La Repubblica Rome -
Economy
How to pay the milkman?
21 September 2009Le Monde Paris -
3 September 2009The Daily Telegraph London
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Common Agricultural Policy
No fiddling with dairy quotas
23 July 2009PresseuropLa Libre Belgique -
Czech Republic
Cheap land needs buyers, and sellers
6 July 2009Respekt Prague -
2 June 2009PresseuropLe Monde
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Food
Beware of Eurofrauds
28 May 2009La Stampa Turin
Indian immigrants working in Italy’s agricultural heartland are keeping some of the country’s internationally renowned food industries alive. And not even the immigrant baiting Northern League is kicking up too much of a fuss. 
Crisis-hit Italian farmers are turning to the intensive cultivation of maize for biogas production, which is more profitable than growing it for food. But they’re laying themselves open to the mercies of speculators -- and they’re threatening biodiversity too, declares the founder of the Slow Food movement. 
When it comes to defrauding the EU, every nation has its specialty: the Greeks invented the plastic olive tree, while the Italians came up with virtual oranges. In Poland, phony organic farms are increasingly popular. As Polityka reports, the only problem is that they are perfectly legal. 
Since the 1990s hundreds of farmers from all over Europe and from the Netherlands in particular settled in Poland because land was cheap. Warsaw, though, now wants to encourage small local operators by penalising those from abroad. 
An EU environmental directive intended to protect boglands has pitched Irish farmers, protecting their traditional rights to cut turf, against environmentalists and the government. 
On 18 November, the European Commission will present outline proposals for the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy. The main objective: to restore a balance in the sharing of costs and subsidies. 
For once pig farmers and piglets are in complete agreement: the barbarous and cruel practice of pig castration serves only to satisfy a pointless whim of German consumers — which is why it should be outlawed, insists Flemish poet and writer, Dimitri Verhulst. 
The newly-appointed European Commission has just started getting down to business and is already re-opening the debate over genetically modified organisms, which remains a bone of enduring contention between member states, pressure groups and Brussels. 
For more than 40 years, Hungary has been fighting to have the Tokaj wine region recognized as a protected designation of origin (PDO). Having battled with the Soviet Union, France and Italy, it is now in dispute with neighbouring Slovakia, which is putting up stiff resistance. 
A report on carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide fluxes in the European Union shows that greenhouse gases produced by agriculture are in excess of ecosystem absorption capacity. Le Figaro highlights the inherent dangers of intensive agriculture. 
Nowhere in the world is sugar more expensive than in the European Union. There are two reasons for this – generous CAP subsidies that prop up this €7bn industry…and lucrative scams perpetrated by the beneficiaries, Europe’s own sugar companies. A report from the International Herald Tribune. 
Over the last few months the collapse of milk prices in Europe has meant that many dairy businesses are operating at a loss, and some farmers have been forced to send their herds to the abattoir — a critical situation, which has added to the ongoing controversy over milk quotas and subsidies. La Repubblica reports from northern Italy. 
To regulate or not to regulate? Strikes and the protest dumping of milk in several European countries have met with a mixed response from Europe's member states and the European Commission. Le Monde reports on how the EU proposes to settle the account with its embattled milk producers. 
Countries like the UK are increasingly rankled that, while being forced to increase their contribution to the EU's CAP fund, most subsidies are siphoned off to multinationals and food conglomerates with little connection to traditional farming. Henry Samuels in the Daily Telegraph discovers, however, that the CAP remains a lifeline for small and medium sized French farms. 
Agricultural land costs much less in the Czech Republic than it does elsewhere in Europe. The Prague weekly Respekt wonders if a ban on land sales to non-Czechs, set to end in 2011, will herald an invasion of rich European farmers. 
Powdered wine, dairy-free cheese, GMO-based organic produce, stateless chickens, orange-less orangeade… – our shopping carts get packed with products that don’t quite fit the description on the label. The fault lies with the EU-imposed labeling regime – under pressure from agribusiness lobbies.