<figure class="inline photoswipe_slides full" readability="5"> <a href="https://media.winnipegfreepress.com/images/EM103-326_2021_210405.jpg" data-index="1" data-size="650x433" rel="nofollow"> </a>
<figcaption readability="10">Tourists and locals have drinks at a bar in downtown Madrid, Spain, Friday, March 26, 2021. With its policy of open bars and restaurants, Madrid has built itself a reputation of something like Europe's last reduct for fun. That's driving some business to locals and giving politicians and the media much to debate about ahead of a regional election. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)</p></figcaption> </figure>
<p>MADRID - In Madrid, the real party starts at 11 p.m. after the bars close — and curfew kicks in. </p>
<p>That's when young, polyglot groups of revelers from Italy, the Netherlands, Germany and, most noticeably, France, join their Spanish contemporaries in Old Madrid's narrow streets to seek illicit fun. Most are in their early 20s, eager to party in the Spanish capital like they haven't been able to do for months at home under strict lockdowns. </p>
<p>With its policy of open bars and restaurants — indoors and outdoors — and by keeping museums and theatres running even when outbreaks have strained hospitals, Madrid has built a reputation as an oasis of fun in Europe’s desert of restrictions. </p>
<p>Other Spanish regions have a stricter approach to entertainment. Even sunny coastal resorts offer a limited range of options for the few visitors that started to arrive, coinciding with Easter week, amid a set of contradictory European travel rules. </p>
<p>“It’s a real privilege for me to go into bars because in France you can’t. Here I can go to restaurants, share time with friends outside of home, discover the city,” Romy Karel said. The 20-year-old Berliner flew to Madrid last Thursday from Bordeaux, the southern French city where she's studying social sciences. </p>
<p>"I can’t remember when was the last time I did this,” she said. </p>
<p>The visitors are bringing some vital business to locals and giving politicians much to debate about before a polarized regional election. Isabel Díaz Ayuso, the regional president of Madrid who is running for reelection, is trying to attract votes beyond her conservative supporters by campaigning under the slogan of “freedom." </p>
<p>Outside the capital, efforts to jumpstart tourism are drawing mixed results. In part, that's due to a patchwork of rules at regional, national and even European levels that curb domestic nonessential travel in many countries while leaving a loophole for those seeking a Spanish holiday. </p>
<p>Although Germany has banned all domestic tourism and discouraged travel abroad, the government allows trips to Spain's Balearic Islands, which have a low infection rate. Bookings of flights and hotels followed even though many were disappointed to find on arrival that bars and restaurants were shut at night. </p> <figure class="inline photoswipe_slides full" readability="5"> <a href="https://media.winnipegfreepress.com/images/EM111-327_2021_095123.jpg" data-index="2" data-size="650x433" rel="nofollow"> </a>
<figcaption readability="10"><p>Two women meet at Palma de Mallorca Airport on the Spanish Balearic Island of Mallorca, Spain, Saturday, March 27, 2021. Efforts in Spain to restart tourism activity is drawing a mixed picture due to a patchwork of national, regional and European rules on travel that is confusing both tourists and their hosts. (AP Photo/Francisco Ubilla)</p></figcaption> </figure>
<p>“In Germany, we have so many rules that coming here feels like freedom," said Marius Hoffman, 18, shortly after he landed in the archipelago's capital, Palma de Mallorca, this past weekend. </p>
<p>David Stock, another German traveller who visited Granada's famed Alhambra complex this week, acknowledged the paradox of his government's rules combined with Spain's embracing of tourists. </p>
<p>“There are strange rules everywhere these days,” Stock said. </p>
<p>In France, hard-hit regions are curtailing free movement to a 10-kilometre (roughly six-mile) radius from home. Together with the nationwide nighttime curfew and the total closure of bars and restaurants since last October, it's proving too much for many, who look south for excitement. </p>
<p>France now accounts for one-fifth of all incoming flights to Madrid, while cellphone roaming data analysis has shown an increasing uptick of French mobiles in the Spanish capital since January — peaking around weekends. </p>
<p>When curfew begins, many of the fun-seekers head for underground gatherings advertised via messaging groups. Others recruit fellow party animals on their way back to their rented Airbnbs. Last weekend, police said they broke up more than 350 illegal parties, with some of the attendees hiding in closets or other “implausible” places. </p>
<p>Spain recently said it would extend a negative coronavirus test requirement in effect for arrivals by sea or air to include those entering from France by land. </p>
<p>Still, foreigners like Hoffman or Karel can fly direct from Munich or Bordeaux to beach resorts or cultural wonders in Spain, while Spaniards can’t travel across regions in the country to their second homes or visit relatives. </p>
<p>This rankles with many, such as Nuria López, a 45-year-old pastry shop owner in the Spanish capital. </p>
<p>“It's unfair,” López said. “But it does help the economy in Madrid and we need that.” </p>
<p>Like her, many see the need to boost an industry that in 2019 accounted for 12.5% of Spain's gross domestic product and employed nearly 13% of its workforce. The near-total halt of international travel, paired with last year's first uncompromising lockdown, meant that the economy shrank 10.8% in 2020, the biggest drop since the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s. </p>
<p>So even as hospitals filled once again after Christmas, politicians resisted the pressure to follow other European countries in ordering full stay-at-home orders, closing schools or most businesses. </p>
<p>To this day, Spain has avoided imposing quarantines for visitors from other EU member countries — unlike neighbouring Portugal, which on Monday tightened the mandatory isolation requirement for most incoming travellers. </p>
<p>Pablo Díaz, a tourism expert with the Barcelona-based UOC university, said pandemic fatigue, especially among younger generations, and a lack of a common European policy have meant that "tourism has found ways to establish direct corridors in an organic way where the supply and demand meet." </p>
<p>The uptick in bookings ahead of Easter week, he said, “has been like a breath of fresh air for tourism." </p>
<p>“But that doesn't mean that the industry is going to come out of ICU any time soon,” he added. </p>
<hr/><p>Bernat Armangue and Iain Sullivan in Madrid, Francisco Ubilla in Palma de Mallorca, Sergio Rodrigo in Granada, Thomas Adamson in Paris, and Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin, contributed to this report. </p>
<hr/><p>Follow AP’s pandemic coverage at: </p>
<p>https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic </p>
<p>https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-vaccine </p>
<p>https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak
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<h2 class="fe_heading2">CapVest enters into an agreement with Sofina Foods for the sale of Eight Fifty Food Group</h2>
</p><div readability="187.46054519369">
Mar, ON, Mar 29, 2021 (Canada NewsWire via COMTEX) —
Funds managed by CapVest Partners LLP (“CapVest”), an international private equity firm, have agreed on the sale of Eight Fifty Food Group (“Eight Fifty” or “the Group”) to Sofina Foods Inc. (“Sofina Foods”), a leading Canadian multi-protein producer, for an undisclosed consideration.
CapVest acquired Karro Food Group, a leading UK pork processor, in 2017. CapVest and Management subsequently acquired iconic seafood business Young’s Seafood in 2019 to create Eight Fifty Food Group. Eight Fifty later consolidated five other protein businesses from across Europe to create what is today a leading European multi-protein specialist.
Sofina Foods is one of Canada’s largest food producers and has a 25-year history of acquisitions, growth and success. Sofina Foods is one of the country’s leading manufacturers of primary and further processed protein products for both retail and foodservice customers. Its brands are staples in Canadian households and include Cuddy; Lilydale; Janes; Mastro; San Daniele; Fletcher’s, Vienna and Zamzam. Sofina Foods currently operates 21 different sites and employs approximately 5,000 people.
Eight Fifty is a leading supplier of both branded and own-label seafood and pork. The pork division is one of the largest processors and suppliers of products across the UK and Ireland. The seafood division is the largest provider of chilled and frozen products across the UK, including the Young’s brand, and is a major player in frozen seafood across Germany and France.
The Group employs around 8,300 people, across 23 manufacturing sites. The business will remain under the leadership of Di Walker and will complement Sofina Food’s existing leading North American platform. As Europe’s multi-protein specialist, Eight Fifty will continue to provide sustainable, high-quality food products while focussing on growth.
Jason Rodrigues, Partner at CapVest, said: “We’ve created a leading European multi-protein business through a combination of strategic investment in our core asset base and complementary acquisitions of fantastic national champions. Eight Fifty delivers best-in-class products to our customers and consumers and we are all very proud of what Di Walker and her team have achieved over the last four years. We’re confident that Eight Fifty will continue to flourish under Sofina Food’s ownership.”
Di Walker, CEO of Eight Fifty, said: “We began this journey as a UK-only pork supplier doing less than £500 million in sales and after several years of transformational organic and acquisitive progress are now the European multi-protein specialist with over £2 billion in sales. This transaction and the interest in Eight Fifty is a great reflection on the quality of the business and testament to the work that CapVest and our entire management team have completed. We’re very excited to join Sofina Foods to deliver on their ambitious future growth plans.”
Michael Latifi, Founder and Executive Chairman of Sofina Foods, said: “As a leading Canadian multi-protein specialist, this acquisition allows Sofina Foods to continue on our path of ambitious expansion. Sofina Foods is one of Canada’s largest food producers and we have created a solid global foundation for continued growth. With a history of excellence in food production and processing spanning over 25 years, the strong brands of Eight Fifty Food Group align perfectly with our prominent brands and our shared future vision.”
The new company will have over 13,000 employees globally across 44 sites and near $6B in annual revenue.
Bob Wilt, President and CEO of Sofina Foods, said “Our team in Canada and our new partners at Eight Fifty Food Group have set the stage for considerable growth. I look forward to working with Di and to welcoming Eight Fifty to the Sofina family, and to drawing upon the significant expertise that exists across both businesses.”
CapVest and Management received financial advice from Jefferies, JP Morgan and Rothschild & Co, legal advice from Willkie Farr & Gallagher and Walker Morris, and financial and tax due diligence services from KPMG.
Sofina Foods received financial advice from Rabobank as the lead financial advisor and Scotiabank as the co-financial advisor. Additional advice was provided by PWC, Stikeman Elliott and Taylor Wessing.
The transaction is subject to approval from regulatory authorities.
About CapVest:
CapVest is a leading international private equity investor that partners with ambitious companies that supply essential goods and services. As an active and patient investor, CapVest has established a strong track record of success in delivering attractive returns by working closely with management teams in supporting transformation in the size and scale of its portfolio companies through a combination of investing behind organic and acquisition-led growth. For more information, visit www.capvest.co.uk
About Eight Fifty Food Group:
Eight Fifty Food Group is a leading supplier of both branded and own-label seafood and pork. The pork division is a leading processor and supplier of pork products across the UK and Ireland. The seafood division is a provider of chilled and frozen products across the UK, Germany and France. Central to its proposition is the iconic 200-year-old Young’s brand, benefitting from elevated brand awareness and unparalleled trust as the UK’s fish and seafood specialist.
Eight Fifty employs around 8,300 people, across 23 manufacturing sites. Eight Fifty is focussed on providing sustainable, high-quality food products while continuing to grow alongside its valued customer base.
About Sofina Foods Inc.
Sofina Foods Inc. is a privately owned Canadian company headquartered in Markham, Ontario, Canada dedicated to providing great tasting, high quality food products for consumers. As one of the nation’s leading manufacturers of primary and further processed protein products for both retail and foodservice customers, Sofina Foods has a broad portfolio of branded and private label pork, beef, fish, turkey, and chicken products. Sofina’s family of branded products consists of: Cuddy, Lilydale, Janes, Mastro, San Daniele, Fletcher’s, Vienna and Zamzam. Sofina Foods currently operates 16 HACCP-approved manufacturing facilities, 2 distribution centres, 3 hatcheries and employs close to 5,000 people. To learn more about Sofina Foods, visit www.sofinafoods.com.
SOURCE Sofina Foods Inc.
View original content to download multimedia: http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/March2021/29/c0606.html
SOURCE: Sofina Foods Inc.
Media contacts: CapVest Partners LLP, Ben Valdimarsson (ReputationInc), +447889805930
/ bvaldimarsson@reputation-inc.com; Sofina Foods, Lisa Joyce, (905) 747-3322 ext 2118
/ ljoyce@sofinafoods.com; Eight Fifty Food Group, Alex Beagley / Tom Hufton / Fiona
Walker, (FTI Consulting), +442037271000 / Alex.Beagley@FTIConsulting.com
Copyright (C) 2021 CNW Group. All rights reserved.
… range of frozen food products including fish, fruits, vegetables, ready meals, … reinforces Nomad’s European frozen food leadership while strategically … which are sold across Western Europe. As a result, … reach within Central and Eastern Europe and extend its …
Polish Ambassador to Qatar H E Janusz Janke (left) and Vice-President of Qatar-Poland Business Council, Pawel Kulaga
Poland will soon expand its agricultural exports to Qatar to include Polish agritech solutions which are also aimed at bringing information technology (IT) to Qatari farms, officials have said.
In an interview with The Peninsula, Polish Ambassador to Qatar H E Janusz Janke said that discussions are currently underway through Qatar-Poland Business Council to provide data management and other agritech solutions that will help further develop Qatari farms as well as accelerate their digitalisation.
To date, Poland is the largest agri-food industry producer in Central and Eastern Europe. The country is also a leading global producer of several agricultural food products. Janke said technological development have had a huge impact on the country’s agri-food sector. He said Polish exports to Qatar reached $199.2m in 2020, while Qatari exports to Poland reached $527.1m during the same period. In 2019, Poland’s agricultural exports to Qatar reached $18.2m. This included fruits, sweets, confectionery, frozen fruit and vegetables, non-alcoholic drinks, frozen meat, and others.
He added: “Poland is very well known as an agricultural hub as well as for its high standards for the food processing industry. About 80 percent of our exports go towards the EU market. And one of the interesting destinations for us is Qatar. Polish exports to Qatar are growing.
“Recently, together with Qatar-Poland Business Council, we have also visited Qatar Science and Technology Park (QSTP). Together with the Qatari partners, we would like to develop some technologies for data management, which is also very important for farming. Because to improve the agricultural sector, you need to have access to a big number of data from the farms,” added Janke.
He said discussions have also been made to conduct scientific studies on Qatar’s horse farms, which are expected to materialise within this year.
“This new approach requires specialised information technology, biobanks, and data collection systems. And generally, the biotech sector related to farming is also a very promising field. In Europe, new technologies are being developed for market control and food security. And these technologies should be based on recent data from the market,” Janke added.
Also speaking to The Peninsula on the sidelines of the Qatar International Agricultural Exhibition (AgriteQ) which concluded in Doha yesterday, Vice-President of the Qatar-Poland Business Council, Pawel Kulaga, said the Council is currently in the process of finishing contracts with Agrico, Qatar’s largest producer of organic vegetables and fruits, as well as with the Qatar Meat.
“Contracts will be for the supply of chicken, as well as the supply of some technologies for the farms. We can also supply technological solutions, and not only food products for the Qatari agricultural market,” said Kulaga.
He added: “Many Polish companies specialise in hydroponics, LED lighting and irrigation systems which are very much in demand in Qatar. We also develop green house technologies and new tech solutions concerning biobase materials, food e-commerce, and waste tech. Poland is very good in managing waste and creating value from waste. We even produce gas from the waste. These are Polish companies which are very strong in the European market. And we are connecting them to the Qatari market.
“Also, there’s a strong sector of venture capital in Poland investing into the agricultural sector. This is also an opportunity for Qatari investors to invest and create technology or produce food that could be supplied to Qatar. We also invite partners from Qatar to take a look at the Polish market,” added Kulaga.
GECF believes that all UNECEmember States should recognise the use of gas, especially in cases where the gas technology replaces higher-emitting power sources and can cut emissions
Welcome to EURACTIV’s AgriFood Brief, your weekly update on all things Agriculture & Food in the EU. You can subscribe here if you haven’t done so yet.
27 – CAP super-trilogue: what’s on the menu?
This week: EURACTIV gives a recap on what to expect from the so-called “super-trilogue” on the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) reform, discussing what is on the menu for the meeting and the main remaining sticking points in negotiations
The EU’s agrifood sector is following the outcomes of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) super trilogue with bated breath, although the road ahead is still uphill.
In this highly unusual Agrifood brief, we’re called to carry out an extremely arduous task: talking about something that it is happening as we write.
Many expectations rest on this ‘super trilogue’, the brainchild of the Portuguese presidency, which is gathering all three of the main Parliament’s rapporteurs on the CAP dossier and the Portuguese presidency around the same table.
The hope is to settle some of the remaining sticking points with a view of reaching the sorely sought-after agreement by May.
This timeline is crucial and the clock is ticking, as Portuguese agricultural minister Maria do Ceu Antunes reminded journalists at a press conference after the EU Agrifish Council on Tuesday (23 March).
The super meeting will close approximately at 7 pm on Friday (26 March) and a press conference has been convened at 7.30, shortly after the publication of these lines.
During the week, the EU’s agricultural Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski offered an optimistic look at the state of negotiations, reiterating that the working atmosphere between negotiators seemed “very good”.
“And I am confident that we will be able to present a final deal in May with a very good outcome for the CAP,” he said.
But despite the optimism shown by some quarters on the eve of the super trilogue, a number of sticking points remain, putting into question whether negotiators will be able to wrap up the CAP.
Negotiators are still wide apart on a number of cornerstone issues as crunch time on CAP talks rapidly approaches. Which ones? It is enough to look at the menu of the meeting to have a handle on this.
As a starter, one of the main bones of contention has been put on the agenda: the new delivery model.
As is no secret, the Commission’s proposal to shifting the CAP to make payments correlated with performance. This is based on nine objectives that need to be pursued by member states together with a set of common output and result indicators.
The assessment of farmers’ performance proposed by the Commission is considered cumbersome by the Parliament as it could lead to unnecessary burdens on national administration.
During the negotiations, MEPs tried to keep performance and compliance as two different, but complementary, key goals in a bid to ease the red tape on performance monitoring.
The Portuguese presidency has proposed a 2-year performance framework to meet the requests of MEPs, with the suspension of payments that can only be done every second year following the performance review, although performance is monitored every year.
The main course to be sampled by the negotiators is a mixed bag, featuring discussions on horizontal regulation and strategic plans.
The tricky definition of active/genuine farmer was the house speciality, a crucial step towards better and fairer distribution of direct payments.
This definition is one of the most controversial pending issues for promoting efficient spending in the next CAP, as it defines access to funding.
The problem arose since in the past money often did not go to those who actually farm the land, but rather to (usually wealthy) land-owners.
The same goes with other definitions, such as what makes a young farmer, a small farmer or a new farmer.
For dessert, negotiators were treated to the exception crisis measure and other outstanding points in the Common Market Organisation (CMO) file, washed down with all the wine issues, including digital labelling, the authorisation of American grapes and the duration of the authorisation scheme for vine plantings until 2045.
Time will tell to see how well this heavy meal went down with negotiators. It seems unlikely, however, they have managed to eat up the feast that was on the table.
(G.F and N.F)
Stories of the week
EU official: Imposing animal welfare standards on imports would be WTO compliant It would be wise to impose the equivalent standards of animal welfare on meat imports coming into the EU, according to a top EU official, who said this would be compliant with the World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules, provided it was based on “ethical grounds”. Natasha Foote has the story.
Organic food ‘healthier’ says agri Commissioner as EU launches new organic plan Organic food is “healthier” than its chemically produced counterparts, EU Agricultural Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski told journalists at an event to mark the launch of the EU’s long-awaited organic action plan on Thursday (25 March). Natasha Foote has more.
New report reiterates there is no East-West divide in food quality A new study on food quality has found detectable differences between European products but said they were not correlated with geography, lending weight to the idea that there is no East-West divide in food quality discrimination in Europe. Read more.
RED II: EU Commission can’t see the wood for the trees, analysts warn The revision of the Renewable Energy Directive II (RED II) as part of the new Green Deal should recalibrate the legislative initiatives which have so far failed to decarbonise Europe’s transport sector, stakeholders have said. Sarantis Michalopoulos has the story.
French mosques fear slaughter policy change is ban on halal chicken Several major French mosques have expressed concern that a proposed ban on the slaughter of poultry without first stunning the animals would effectively lead to a ban on halal chicken, while the agriculture ministry says this concern is unfounded. EURACTIV France reports.
French dairy farmers sour after milk origin labelling scrapped A decision by France’s top court to annul the obligation to label the origin of milk has provoked outrage in France. Dairy farmers and politicians are particularly sour about the move, calling it an “unacceptable step backwards.” EURACTIV France reports.
CAP corner: Protestors from WeMoveEurope, Extinction Rebellion and BirdLife Europe occupied the roundabout in front of the European Berlaymont building on Wednesday (24 March) demanding Commission President von der Leyen to withdraw the CAP because it is not in line with the European Green Deal. “About 80% of subsidies is transferred to 20% of the biggest producers. Is this a fair and just system? The current CAP conserves a system, where subsidies funded by all of us, European taxpayers, land in the pockets of big producers for whom the financial profit is the only important factor”,” Dominik Kulczynski from Extinction Rebellion pointed out in a speech at the protest. So far, more than 157,000 people have signed a petition demanding President von der Leyen to withdraw this deal and propose a new agriculture policy.
Geographical indications: The European Commission has approved the application for registration of “Vasi vadkörte pálinka” from Hungary and “Pistacchio di Raffadali” in the Register of Protected Geographical Indications (PGI). “Vasi vadkörte pálinka” is a brandy produced from wild pears in western Hungary, while the latter is a pistachio variety grown in Italy.
New transparency rules: The 2019 regulation on transparency and sustainability of the EU risk assessment in the food chain will eneter into force from 27 March, bolstering EU’s food safety agency (EFSA) ability to carry out its risk assessment in accordance with the highest transparency standard. More information here.
Agrifood news from the Capitals
CROATIA Bolstered by its own commercial production of seeds, Croatia has become one of the top EU countries for organic agricultural production. But organic farmers now fear that the introduction of a new Seed Act may jeopardise this. EURACTIV Croatia reports. BULGARIA Family farming is no easy task, but one young Bulgarian couple has shown that sustainable farming can be a successful business venture, while also helping to revive one of the EU’s poorest regions. EURACTIV Bulgaria reports.
UK UK food and drink exports to the European Union dropped by 75% in January, the first month of life outside the EU’s single market, according to data published by the UK’s Food and Drink Federation. Read more. (Benjamin Fox| EURACTIV.com)
SPAIN The European Green Deal offers opportunities and challenges to Spanish farmers, stakeholders have warned, highlighting that Spain needs more support in the transition towards a more sustainable model of agriculture. EURACTIV’s partner EFE Agro reports.
POLAND The Supreme Audit Office (NIK) evaluated the activities of institutions responsible for counteracting drought in agriculture, publishing a report on Monday (22 March) to coincide with world water day. The problem of drought, which used to occur every few years, now occurs almost every year. Experts agree – in order to counteract water shortages, it is necessary to invest in the so-called small retention. (Mateusz Kucharczyk | EURACTIV.pl)
ROMANIA Farmers that grow certain crops, including peppers, cucumbers, and tomatoes, are eligible for aid of up to €2,000 per 1,000 square meters of protected crops in a new programme, which has a total budget of 150 million lei (about €30 million), according to agriculture minister Adrian Oros. The aid will replace a support program aimed at tomato growers that ran for four years, but is considered a failure by the current minister. On the other hand, a three-year program to support garlic farming is set to continue in 2021, the last year of the program, with a maximum budget of 15 million lei. The program has proved a success, with the number of beneficiaries growing three-times in 2020 compared with the previous year, while the areas included in the program reached 1,325 hectares, from 360 ha in 2019. The amount granted to farmers will be a maximum of €3,000 per hectare, but it needs to be lower than €20,000 per beneficiary over the three-year period. (Bogdan Neagu | EURACTIV.ro)
GERMANY Germany is considering ways to fund an increased ambition in animal welfare standards, including a new levy on animal welfare, but the idea has raised eyebrows among German farmers, who are concerned they will be exposed to unfair competition. EURACTIV Germany reports. (EURACTIV.de)
FRANCE Farmers’ suicides are no longer a taboo subject in France, but the French government should do more to tackle the issue, according to a report published last week by the Economic Affairs Committee of the French Senate. The last statistics from 2015 suggest that on average, two French farmers take their life every day. The senatorial report identifies low revenues and agribashing as major difficulties faced by farmers. The latter often felt “abandoned by society”, the senators report. In order to improve the situation, the report names 63 recommendations on how the government should take action. Proposed measures include a decent revenue for farmers, a lightening of administrative burdens, quicker and easier access to state aid and better measures to accompany farmers in difficulty as well as close relatives of victims. (Magdalena Pistorius | EURACTIV.fr)
IRELAND The ‘All-Ireland Pollinator Plan’ 2021-2025 was unveiled this week by Green Party Ministers Malcolm Noonan and Pippa Hackett. Billed as a “stronger, more ambitious roadmap”, the plan aims to help biodiversity by engaging communities, local authorities, farmers, schools and businesses to take action for nature, reports Agriland (Natasha Foote | EURACTIV.com)
Organic food is “healthier” than its chemically produced counterparts, EU Agricultural Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski told journalists at an event to mark the launch of the EU’s long-awaited organic action plan on Thursday (25 March).
The Commissioner said that though all food on the European market is safe and subject to “strict control of the highest safety standards,” organic production is on balance the healthier option.
“Our consumers can be sure that the food which we have in our market produced in Europe, also the imported [food], is controlled and is safe. But of course, the organic products, the methods of production, they should guarantee higher standards of health,” he said, adding that, in an ideal world, he would like to see all agriculture in Europe farmed organically.
“Products produced without chemical intervention are healthier,” he continued, stressing that this is especially the case with locally produced food.
Organic agriculture has a lower environmental impact than conventional production and there is a growing demand for organic food both in Europe and globally as more people seek out healthy food, Wojciechowski said as he presented the long-awaited EU plan.
The plan aims at incentivising both the production and consumption of organic produce across the bloc in line with the ambitious target included in the EU’s flagship Farm to Fork food policy to see 25% of agricultural land farmed organically by 2030.
“I’m convinced that with this plan, we will increase the area of organic farming and organic food production to the benefit of human health, the environment, the climate and animal welfare,” Wojciechowski said.
On the back of growing concern over the target for 25% of EU farmland to be farmed organically by 2030, EU Commissioner for Agriculture Janusz Wojciechowski has lent the plan his support and stressed it is achievable. But farmers are still concerned that, as it stands, supply may well outstrip demand, which they say could “kill” the sector.
The action plan aims to provide a clear road map to achieving this target, although it does not feature new legislative initiatives from the Commission’s side.
Using a push-pull approach, the plan outlines a three-pronged approach to meeting the goal. Both demand and production should be increased and the contribution of organic farming to sustainability improved.
The plan’s stated aim is to “encourage a marked increase of the share of organic farming in the EU, through encouraging farmers to convert to organic farming and to expand the accessibility of organic food to close the gap between a business-as-usual growth curve and the ‘extra effort’ necessary to reach a 25% target by 2030.”
This involves measures such as promoting the EU organics logo, increasing the share of organic food in public procurement, such as in school and public canteens, and investments in research and innovation.
Jan Plagge, president of EU organics association IFOAM Organics Europe, welcomed the plan, which, alongside the F2F strategy, will mark a “new era for the transformation of our food systems towards organic and agroecology”.
“The Commission has put forward concrete steps to boost organic demand,” he said, citing the €49 million budget for organic within the promotion policies framework and the integration of organic products into the minimum mandatory criteria for sustainable public procurement.
Furthermore, Plagge greeted as “timely steps forward” the move to allocate at least 30% of the Horizon Europe funding for agriculture, forestry, and rural areas to topics relevant for the organic sector, as well as carrying out a study on the real price of food and the role of taxation.
The EU umbrella organisation for the pesticides and biopesticides industries, CropLife Europe, also welcomed the action plan as an “important piece of the Farm to Fork equation.”
“Whilst there are important trade-offs to be considered through the increase of organic farming in the EU, we recognise the importance of stimulating sustainability through the increased diversity of agricultural practices. Our industry will continue innovating to support the needs of organic farmers,” a spokesperson told EURACTIV.
Europe has one of world’s largest shares of organic farmland, and was home to close to 14 million of the 70 million hectares of organically cultivated agricultural land worldwide in 2018.
Although they are far from dominating the sector, organically cultivated land made up around 8% of total EU agricultural land in 2018, compared to just over 1.5% of land cultivated organically worldwide.
Wine importer Laine Boswell at one of her client wineries in France, Grande Boise.
Ruggero Ughetti
Speaking about influences on her career in the wine industry, wine importer Laine Boswell points to the two women who had the strongest effect: a great aunt who lived in Paris and a classmate who hired Boswell to work for her family’s business after graduation. Based in Seattle and Switzerland, Laine Boswell Selections specializes in importing wine from notable but off-the-beaten-track regions around the world to the United States. She works with small, family-owned producers who grow native varieties and make wines utilizing organic or biodynamic practices. A graduate of the master’s degree program in Wine Science and Management through the OIV (Organisation International de la Vigne et du Vin),Boswell has deep connections in Europe and is passionate about telling the story of these family wineries.
Boswell seeks out wineries helmed by second or third generation family members who are looking to the future while remaining committed to the values of their parents and grandparents. She believes in the “slow and steady” method to building strong and long-lasting relationships with all of her partners on both sides of the Atlantic. She has two part time people working with her in the US, one who manages state-side logistics when Boswell is in Europe and another who works as a sales manager and coordinator.
Boswell is currently working with twelve brands from Switzerland, France, Spain, Italy, and Oregon, and is looking to add three to four new winery partners and two to three new distribution partners in the coming year. LBS imports approximately 140,000 bottles annually, and the wines are available in eight states, mostly on the coasts.
Two of the wine brands available in the US via Laine Boswell Selections.
Alycia Lovell
As we continue to shine a light on women in wine during Women’s Month, we spoke with Laine Boswell about her mentors and her journey into wine, the difficult task of running a small import business during Covid-19, and how she and her husband worked together to create two new wine brands for the American Market.
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World Wine Guys: What was your journey towards working in the wine industry and starting your own import company?
Laine Boswell: While studying in France during college and then living and teaching there for a couple of years afterward, I spent most of my free time visiting European wine regions, learning more about wine, and, of course, tasting a lot. I had an influential great aunt who was an expat living in Paris and very involved in the French food scene. She helped me to cultivate an already significant love of the table and all that it represented. Being able to connect with people and learn more about their lives, culture and passions over a long meal with a great glass or multiple glasses of wine became one of my greatest pleasures. I knew after spending this time in Europe during my most formative years that being able to share the stories and traditions of amazing family vignerons through their wines was what I wanted to do. As soon as I returned to the U.S., I set out to find a job in the wine industry. As an eager and passionate young woman in her mid- twenties with little work experience, I was met with quite a few raised eyebrows, but I was eventually able to land a job working at a winery in Washington State as the marketing and communications manager. From there, I met many people in the northwest wine industry and subsequently jumped into a sales position in Seattle with a cool distribution company that worked mainly with European imports. I continued to take wine education classes, read a lot, and, of course, tasted as much as possible. I learned about the master’s degree program in Wine Science and Management through the OIV and immediately applied. I was accepted and became one of twenty students from twelve different countries to enroll that year. We spent the next two years studying at affiliated French universities as well as traveling to over 22 countries around the world to study wine. It is still, to this day, the single most influential career and personal experience of my life, not only because of what I learned, but also because of the remarkable network of people in the wine industry around the world that I met and continue to interact with today.
Wine importer Laine Boswell and her winemaker husband, Olivier Roten, in his vineyard in Valais, … [+] Switzerland.
Ruggero Ughetti
WWG: How easy or difficult is it to set up your own wine importation company?
LB: The initial process of setting up my import company was more about paperwork than anything else. I had moved to Italy after the O.I.V. master’s program to learn more about Italian wines and identify a few key producers I wanted to represent. I spent about two years primarily building relationships across the country while also working on various wine events, developing my business plan, and submitting all the necessary paperwork to obtain a U.S. import license. The paperwork was tedious, but the process of relationship building and homing in on how I wanted to set my venture apart as a female-owned importing company was pure joy. I loved the crafting of it and likened it to piecing together a patchwork quilt of the best wines that represented colorful people and untold stories. Once I had the framework laid out, the challenge of finding and cultivating customers in the U.S. then began.
WWG: How did you and your husband come up with the idea for your new brands, Avalanche and Alpine Roots?
LB: My husband, Olivier Roten, is the third generation to manage his family’s vineyard land and winery, which is located in the Valais, Switzerland’s largest grape-growing region in the heart of the Alps.
We met through the O.I.V. master’s program, although we completed the degree at different times. We were introduced at a friend’s winery in Oregon while he and his class were visiting the Willamette Valley. As an O.I.V. alumnae and NW native, I helped to meet and greet visiting students and organize certain logistics and presentations for their local classes. It was more or less love at first sight or, rather, first discussion. I was based in my hometown of Seattle at that time and facing some crucial decisions for my business, and he was returning to Switzerland and officially taking over his family’s winery, but we managed to find ways to cross the ocean to see each other.
Not long after we decided to marry, we began to dream up ways we could work together, while still keeping focused on our respective businesses. We decided to create a label that honored both our love story as well as the roots and heart of Swiss wine from the Alps.
We started with two of our favorite Swiss varieties; Pinot Noir and Fendant, which is also called Chasselas. They both are particularly celebrated in my husband’s native Valais region, which also boasts the Matterhorn peak and Edelweiss, the Swiss national flower. We based the label on an old Swiss postage stamp and had it hand-drawn and re-crafted by my talented designer cousin (@castandcompany). The Avalanche wines represent the style of wines that we like to drink on a regular basis as well as the essence of my husband’s Alpine roots and what we love together in life. It says it all on our back label: Travel, Climb Mountains, Be Inspired, Drink Good Wine, Drink Swiss Wine. Fall in Love.
We also wanted people to identify with those most important, classic elements of Swiss culture and tradition, which include wine, perhaps more than anything else. Most recently we have also created an exclusive retail line of my husband’s wines called Alpine Roots. These wines include a few of our absolute favorite indigenous Swiss varieties, such as Petite Arvine and Humagne Rouge. On this label we chose a hand-drawn sketch of the Alpine valley where my husband’s vineyard lands are located. Look for those in the U.S. market now.
Bottles of Avalanche, a Swiss wine brand created for the US market by winemaker Olivier Roten and … [+] his wife Laine Boswell.
Ruggero Ughetti
WWG: Can you tell us about a female mentor who had an impact on your career?
LB: Without a doubt, the most influential woman along my journey and career path is Raquel Perez Cuevas, who is a fourth-generation owner of Bodegas Ontañon based in Rioja, Spain. Alongside her sisters and brother she manages the family winery and the extensive vineyard lands they own on the high-elevation slopes of the Rioja Oriental region. Raquel trusted me to bring her family’s wines to the American market for the first time over 11 years ago and then to manage their U.S. presence. Not only did she believe in me and my abilities in the very early stages of creating my company, but she taught me by example important qualities that have helped me to meet the challenges of a sometimes ruthless, male-dominated professional world and to maintain my focus on the importance of personal relationships. She manages her team and varied business clients around the world with integrity, empathy and respect, and most importantly with an authentic, direct, fair and incredibly intelligent professional manner. She has earned respect in return and has helped her family to build the largest single holding of vineyard land in Spain. The care, passion and effort she puts into everything she does is immediately recognizable in the quality of wines the family produces.
WWG: What were the effects of Covid-19 and wine tariffs on your brand-new business?
LB: Both have had substantial effects. The wine tariffs have made it extremely difficult for companies (especially small- to medium-sized ones) to import wines from France, Spain and Germany in any quantity that makes shipping costs reasonable, as we are responsible for paying the 25% increase in cost (that the tariffs have added) up front, before the wine lands at port. This cost increase is crippling for a sector of the industry that already works on slim margins, and the money is taken out of the company many, many months before there is any return. The tariffs are detrimental to our industry and especially to smaller importing businesses like mine trying to bring hidden gems from less well-known European wine-growing regions to the U.S. for reasonable and fair prices. This is the basis of my business, and it feels as though an arm has been cut off when Covid also continues to threaten our existence on so many levels, especially with the near absence of restaurant sales for more than a year. We have faith that the new United States Trade Representative will soon be officially appointed and will swiftly reverse these tariffs that have nothing to do with the wine industry.
Chateau Plaisance owner Marc Penavayre with importer Laine Boswell in his Languedoc-Rousillon … [+] vineyard.
Ruggero Ughetti
WWG: What would you like to tell wine drinkers about Swiss wine?
LB: Go try Swiss wines! The Swiss have a history of grape growing for wine production that dates back to Roman times. Swiss wines are beautiful, refined and diverse. At the moment less than two percent of Swiss wine is exported, but that is slowly changing as the new generation of vignerons are more curious and motivated to explore the export market. Most of the vineyard land in Switzerland is planted on steep slopes, whether above Lake Geneva or in the foothills of the Alps, which means that all vineyard work, including harvest, is done by hand. Given its vast span of mountainous terrain, Switzerland boasts the highest altitude vineyard (1150 meters) in all of Europe and in certain of its wine-growing regions, like the Valais where I spend a fair amount of time, the Alpine influence is notable in the character of the wines. They are fresh, pure, delineated, elegant and tend to have a notable backbone of acidity.
The Swiss, like the French, classify their wines by AOC (appellation d’origine contrôlée),which defines wines by their geographical area, characterized by particular growing conditions called terroir.While the Swiss cultivate over 200 different grape varieties, the most popular wines are made from Pinot Noir and Chasselas) and together represent approximately 60% of their production. Wine is a major part of Swiss culture and is widely celebrated, particularly in the main wine-growing regions like Valais, Vaud, Grison and Ticino. Many families still take great pride in tending their own small parcels of vineyard land which have been handed down and split up between family members over the generations.
Sales of organic food products in the European Union have more than doubled over the last decade – from €16.3 billion in 2008 to €37.4 billion in 2018 – and demand continues to grow.
However, many Europeans are still unsure of what “organic” really means. Is it natural? Free of pesticides? Locally grown?
Well not exactly. Here are some of the conditions food products must meet in order to be considered organic in the EU:
No synthetic fertilisers
Natural fertilisers, such as compost and seaweed derivatives, are essential to maintaining fertile and healthy soil. So organic food must be grown with these products, rather than synthetic fertilisers that are used in conventional farming, and which tend to be made of harsher chemical ingredients including nitrogen compounds, phosphorus, and potassium.
“Organic farming improves soil structures and quality and enhances biodiversity. Studies have shown that organic farming present 30% more of biodiversity in the fields”, explains Elena Panichi, Head of Unit at DG Agriculture and Rural Development (DG AGRI).
No synthetic pesticides
Farmers need to fight weeds and pests. Organic farmers are only allowed to use naturally-derived pesticides, made from plants, animals, microorganisms, or minerals.
“These chemicals are of a natural origin. For instance, essential oils, plant extracts, that are listed in the relevant regulation, and are authorised, following a process that implies a scientific committee to assess the effect on the environment“, says Panichi.
Organic farms also have techniques such as crop rotation, or planting different crops on the same plot of land, to help to prevent soil-borne diseases.
Natural predators, such as ladybugs, can also be an effective method of pest control.
However, it is important to remember that just because something is “natural”, it doesn’t automatically make it harmless to either people or the environment.
No GMOs
To be certified as “organic”, food cannot contain products made from genetically modified crops.
This rule is the same for organic meat and other livestock products. Besides, the animals are to be raised on 100% organic feed.
Antibiotics as a last resort
The animals we eat, or whose products we consume, need to be kept disease-free. Many conventional farmers routinely use antibiotics for disease prevention. These can end up making their way into the food chain.
Excessive antibiotics are not good for people or animals because they can help create superbugs. Antimicrobial resistance is a global concern. Every year, around 33, 000 people die in the EU, due to infections from antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
On organic farms, the use of antibiotics is severely restricted. Farmers control disease by limiting the number of animals they raise and using methods such as a healthy diet for their livestock. They are only allowed to use antibiotics when absolutely necessary for an animal’s health, in order to avoid suffering, and when natural remedies such as phytotherapeutic and homoeopathic medicines are not effective.
“If in conventional [farming], sometimes antibiotics are given as preventive tools, in organics, antibiotics can be given as a last resort if there are no other methods to intervene. Normally, the higher animal welfare standards applied in organics already keep animals in a healthier status that prevent the use of antibiotics”, explains Panichi.
However, studies have shown that antibiotic use on farms is on the decline. Sales of animal antibiotics in the EU have fallen by more than 34% between 2011 and 2018.
Better animal welfare
Organic farmers must provide the environmental conditions necessary for animals to express their natural behaviour, such as adequate outdoor space. This is not compulsory in conventional farming.
There are additional rules such as the prohibition on caging or mutilation unless absolutely necessary for health reasons.
What “organic” doesn’t mean
Locally grown
Europeans are the second largest consumers of organic in the world. Local supply can’t meet demand yet, so a large number of organic products are imported.
Words like “natural”, “green” or “eco” on labels and packaging do not necessarily mean a product is organic.
Healthy
There’s a wide range of organic product on supermarket shelves, from burgers to pizzas, from cheese to wine. The health implications of consuming excess fats, salt or sugar don’t disappear just because a food product is organic. Too much fat, salt and sugar is still bad for you, whether it is organic or not.
How can you be sure that the “organic” food you’re buying is actually organic?
The most reliable way to know if a product is organic is if it has this official EU logo.
The white leaf on a green background means that EU rules on production, processing, handling and distribution, have been followed and that the product contains at least 95% organic ingredients. This logo can only be used on products that have been certified by an authorised control agency or body.
Some countries have also created their own organic logos. They are optional and complementary to the EU’s leaf. This is the French one, for instance.
New rules coming in 2022
EU rules on organic production will change soon. In 2022, Europe will have legislation with stricter controls.
Panichi believes it will bring a “substantial improvement” to the organic sector.
“We have to bear in mind that the new organic legislation is not a revolution, but it’s an evolution of the organic legislation that started in the past years and has been kept evolving together with the sector”.
The new legislation will harmonise rules for non-EU and EU producers. It will also simplify procedures for small farms in order to attract new producers, thanks to a new system of group validation.
The list of organic foods is expected to grow, with the addition of products such as salt and cork. The possibility of certifying insects as organic is also expected in the rules.
What is the future of organics?
“Surfaces in Europe are increasing or as well as all over the world, and they are increasing at a fast pace,” says Panichi.
As part of its Farm To Fork strategy, the EU has committed to increasing organic production, with the goal of 25% of all agricultural land being used for organic farming by 2030. In 2019, it was only around 8%.
By 2030, Europe also aims to reduce the use of harmful chemicals and hazardous pesticides by 50%.
Buying organic food is still too expensive for many. One of Farm To Fork’s main goals is to make healthy, sustainable food more accessible and affordable to all Europeans. A French from 2019 shows that a basket of eight organic fruits and eight organic vegetables is, on average, twice as expensive as a basket of non-organic products.
Note: The requirements listed in this article are just some of the conditions necessary for a product to be considered organic. If you want to know more about what is needed to obtain the green logo, please check the EU regulation.
Using genome editing technologies in plants could help the EU ensure food security and reduce the impact of current agriculture practice on the climate, according to new report by the European Group on Ethics in science and new technologies (EGE).
Allowing gene editing for precision breeding would help the EU achieve goals stated in its Farm to Fork strategy, of reducing use of fertilisers by 30 per cent and turning 25% of agricultural land over to organic farming by 2030.
“There is a need to ensure food security, provide renewable resources for fuel, feed and fibre, safeguard the retention of biodiversity and protect the environment,” the report says. “Current forms of agriculture contribute significantly to the anthropogenic climate crisis.”
The ethicists also call for broader and more inclusive societal debate on genome editing, for better monitoring of regulatory and scientific developments in the field, and moves to establish a system of global governance of gene editing technologies.
EGE looked at the impact of gene editing in humans, animals and plants, concluding that in agriculture, the EU should speed up its adoption for plant breeding, to keep up with international competition and support food production.
Gene editing of plants is comparable to current breeding techniques that use radiation or chemicals to genetically manipulate seeds, or to what can be achieved by the natural, but laborious process of crossing different cultivars.
According to the Euroseeds association, the regulation of genome editing that is comparable to conventional methods should be proportional to the risk – and light in touch.
Petra Jorasch, manager of plant breeding innovation advocacy at Euroseeds, said without improvements in plant breeding, Farm to Fork will reduce agricultural productivity. “If you take [pesticides and fertilisers] from farmers, you need some kind of innovation to compensate,” she said.
Catching up with the rest of the world
Precision breeding of plants through gene editing cannot be used in the EU following a 2018 ruling by the European Court of Justice, which found these techniques are subject to the 2001 EU directive banning genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
Post Brexit, the UK is currently considering whether to allow gene editing in crops, and has launched an industry consultation. The UK government view is that organisms produced by gene editing or other genetic technologies, should not be regulated as GMOs if they could have been produced by existing breeding methods.
Argentina changed its laws to allow genome editing in crops back in 2015. Other countries in South America soon followed, while the US, Canada, Australia and Japan seem to be following a similar direction. The debate is ongoing in Russia, China, India and South Africa, but the EU remains the only major region in the world where genome edited crops are regulated as GMOs.
“For the moment Europe is lagging behind,” said Oana Dima, science policy manager at EU-SAGE, a group of scientists from 134 European plant science institutes and societies advocating for the use of genome editing for more sustainable agriculture and food production. “We should follow Africa and how they are dealing with genome editing, they are facing more severe challenges than we do,” Dima said.
The EGE report is part of a broader study the European Commission is carrying out at the request of member states, to assess if novel genomic techniques can be used safely for agriculture, industrial and pharmaceutical applications. The Commission is expected to publish its conclusions in April.
The Commission is planning to allocate €5 million from the Horizon Europe research and innovation programme, for projects aimed at understanding the benefits and risks of genome editing technologies in agriculture over the next two years.
Public perceptions
According to Jorasch, 25 years of activism against genetically modified organisms have skewed public perceptions of any form of genetic engineering and its potential use in agriculture, while the EU’s restrictive regulation on GMOs has made it difficult to get products on the market. “There is a huge gap between perception and scientific fact,” she said.
While genome editing is not a silver bullet, the technology can contribute to the goals of the Farm to Fork strategy, said Dima. “We should look at all the tools that we have at hand and give farmers and the consumers the freedom of choice.”
JUDGES CHOSE POPULAR SUGAR ALTERNATIVE – VITAFIBER – AS A FINALIST AS WORLD’S TOP INNOVATIVE FOOD INGREDIENT FOR 2021 – Organic Food News Today – EIN Presswire
Environment International (2021). DOI: 10.1016/j.envint.2021.106479″>
Environment International (2021). DOI: 10.1016/j.envint.2021.106479″ width=”800″ height=”326″/>
Graphical abstract. Credit: Environment International (2021). DOI: 10.1016/j.envint.2021.106479
The Water Framework Directive was enacted in 2000 with the goal of protecting and restoring aquatic ecosystems to a “good ecological status.” Alongside this monumental water policy effort, large amounts of environmental monitoring data were gathered to track the occurrence of organic contaminants in Europe. For the first time, this large dataset comprising of more than 8 million measurements of 352 organic contaminants in 31 countries over the last 15 years was comprehensively analyzed to deduce both the status and trends of European freshwater integrity.
“We have analyzed several million of water quality measurements detailing the occurrence of organic contaminants throughout Europe over the last 15 years and assessed the risks that are posed to freshwater environments,” says the lead author Jakob Wolfram, scientist at the Institute for Environmental Sciences in Landau. “Our study found that governmental monitoring improves, yet freshwater systems remain frequently impaired by exposures to numerous organic contaminants and for some important organism groups these conditions continue to deteriorate.”
In this extensive analysis, it was found that most types of organic contaminants, such as industrial chemicals, pesticides and pharmaceuticals, are increasingly found in surface waters. Only one third of water bodies were not contaminated by any organic contaminants in a given year. Upon closer inspection of these sites, it was found that monitoring was substantially less reliable there, likely resulting in failure to detect many relevant contamination events. As a result, the quality of monitoring was compared between countries and shown to be linked to the degree to which contaminants were found in the field. These results suggest that in many countries the true exposure of organic contaminants remains severely underestimated until monitoring efforts improve.
Pesticides remain the dominant factor adversely impacting European freshwaters, causing 85% of ecological threshold exceedances. As a result, water bodies in areas dominated by agriculture were shown to experience the highest pollution that threatens ecosystem integrity. Overall, at 35% of sites an ecological threshold was exceeded in a given year, resulting in 38% of waterbodies being impaired ecologically. While pharmaceuticals did not appear to pose substantial short-term risks, their regular presence could cause long-term effects in aquatic communities that are currently still mostly unknown.
According to the authors, freshwater ecosystems remain at risk in Europe, particularly for aquatic fish, insects, and crustaceans. Jakob Wolfram adds: “Our results highlight that despite the concerted effort of the Water Framework Directive, further invigorated efforts are now needed to curb the environmental pollution of freshwaters.”
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Francesco Citarda thinks the grapes in his Sicilian vineyard do more than produce excellent wine. In Alto Belice Corleonese, an area rived by the Mafia’s presence, Mr. Citarda says his co-op’s products can fight organized crime at its core.
He’s a founding member of La Placido Rizzotto Libera Terra co-op. It produces goods from its arable land, winery and olive groves — and runs an agritourismo, a farm that hosts tourists. And all of it is done on a lush 618-acre estate the government confiscated from the Mafia.
Set up in 2001, it was the first of nine co-ops of the network Libera Terra (Freed Land). The network shares know-how and resources among its co-ops and now employs about 170 people.
Mr. Citarda says La Placido Rizzotto has brought change, in a region where the Mafia dominates socially and economically, ignoring local development and workers’ rights.
The co-op members rehabilitated the land and properties that were left to spoil after the government took them from the Mafia. They made links to local people and secured credit to ultimately establish a range of productive outputs. And they’ve done it knowing the Mafia is suspected of regularly intimidating and attacking other such co-ops.
“We have demonstrated that a choice is possible even in the difficult contexts where we operate,” Mr. Citarda said.
Laws in Italy allow for the social reuse — although not the sale — of property seized from people convicted of involvement in organized crime. Once properties are confiscated, they can be made available for groups to bid on. Libera Terra — itself part of the anti-Mafia organization Libera — helps groups bid for tenders. After the tender is won, it provides training and guidance on managing co-ops.
Libera Terra’s nine co-ops — which had revenue of about $8.3 million in 2019 — are among hundreds in Italy using confiscated real estate. Other countries are also employing social reuse; for instance, in 2018 the European Union funded a pastry shop run by local people in a confiscated property in Albania. Their aim was to send out a message that what’s stolen from society can and must be given back.
All governments can confiscate the properties of criminal groups, although how they practice this varies. But confiscating properties is rarely an issue; managing them is.
Libera Terra’s model deals with that. It’s a way to reuse confiscated properties to redistribute wealth locally, providing jobs for local people — many of whom had few alternatives to working for the Mafia. Mr. Citarda says it is a highly visible and symbolic form of social justice.
Mr. Citarda’s co-op now has nine members and employs 22 permanent and seasonal staff from the area. It uses only organic and ecologically sustainable farming methods. Its wheat, chickpeas and grapes contributed to a turnover of about $890,000 in 2019.
The co-op members won the tender to use the property, and then had to gain the trust of wary local people for their vision to respect the land, workers and the finished product.
Mr. Citarda says reviving the fallow fields and dilapidated buildings was a major challenge. But he adds, “The aim is to demonstrate the value and importance of social reuse of confiscated assets for the rebirth of entire territories.”
The impact of social reuse — rather than simply confiscation — on the Mafia is hard to quantify. However, crime groups’ suspected attempts to intimidate people running co-ops gives a flavor of their attitude toward them.
Libera has published research into reuse of about 800 confiscated properties throughout Italy, finding they benefited regional development and employment, particularly for young people.
“Libera does a great job,” says Michele Riccardi, senior researcher at Transcrime, at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore. “Their products are well known and very high quality.
“Asset confiscation in Italy has been the most powerful instrument for the last 30 to 35 years against the Mafia, as profit- and power-oriented organizations. When the profits and proceeds of these criminal groups are hit, it hurts them very much.”
Libera shares knowledge with another anti-Mafia organization, the Alameda Foundation, in Buenos Aires. The foundation helped establish a similar project, a space containing confiscated machinery from illegal textile workshops, called the Barracas Clothing Demonstration Center. People previously trapped in illegal workshops work there in co-ops. The aim is that groups will establish themselves and eventually move to their own premises, making space for others that need the machinery and guidance to start production.
Shirley Ramos, a Bolivian, went to Argentina with a promise of a good job at a workshop, but says, “I found that it was precarious and enslaved.” She worked 16-hour days over one year there. Bosses withheld her passport and threatened to have her deported.
“I didn’t know Argentine laws and I didn’t have technology available to inform myself,” Ms. Ramos says.
Authorities found that the owner was not paying the workers and they closed the workshop. Dozens of the workers came together to form the December 9 Cooperative and were given space at the Barracas center.
Ms. Ramos says it was difficult initially to find equal commitment and responsibilities among the co-op partners. They had to learn from their mistakes. Now they vote for a board of directors, and there is a set of internal regulations that all the partners must comply with.
Ms. Ramos has been working at the co-op making wholesale clothing for several years, under fair conditions. She says the work is a struggle but that the co-op is growing.
“The co-operative is very important for my colleagues and I, due to everything that happened. We’ve established an efficient and productive co-operative, and businessmen no longer exploit us.”
Lucas Manjon, who has headed investigations at the Alameda Foundation, argues that providing employment quickly reduces workers’ vulnerability. Otherwise, he says, “they could again be victims of traffickers and slavers.”
But although social reuse works across borders, how and if it is carried out varies. Romania and Portugal, for example, have laws permitting reuse of confiscated assets, but it’s rarely practiced. And the laws governing situations where property is in one country but criminal owners are from another are inadequate.
The European Union has a framework for confiscating assets and a directive for national laws to promote social reuse. And the U.N. Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime committed countries to adopting practices for extradition and legal co-operation. But they do not oblige action.
In Italy there are problems with timely assignment of property to groups. Mr. Citarda says La Placido Rizzotto is still waiting for some land to change from “seized” to “confiscated” status so that they can work it. Delays cause land to lie uncultivated and properties to deteriorate. And Italy’s successful confiscation efforts mean it currently controls about 16,400 properties. Ms. Riccardi says assigning them all for social reuse is impossible. “Every asset has its own story,” Ms. Riccardi says. “You need to go there, do due diligence, verify its condition, identify the owners. It is not easy at all. A really time-consuming activity.”
Elsewhere, governments auction off properties, such as in Scotland. Italian laws prohibit that, potentially safeguarding against further misuse. Yet, Ms. Riccardi believes a cost-benefit analysis on most properties would best decide whether to sell it or assign it for social reuse.
But Luigi Ciotti, Libera’s founder, wants social reuse of confiscated assets to be mandatory, at least, throughout Europe.
“It’s proven that this tool is very harmful to the Mafia,” he says. “It destroys its patrimony — not only economically, but politically, culturally and socially.”
Rhodri Davies is a freelance journalist who covers rights and inequality in Europe, Latin America and the Middle East.
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A $2 trillion group of investors on Monday (22 March) urged the European Commission to be more ambitious in its planned overhaul of the bloc’s huge farming subsidy programme to fight climate change and protect biodiversity.
Ahead of a meeting of agriculture ministers from European Union countries on Monday, the group said proposed reforms to the Common Agricultural Policy needed to go much further to align with the EU target to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
Led by Legal & General Investment Management and think-tank Chatham House, the group made four recommendations, including reducing direct support for commodities with high emissions, such as red meat and dairy.
Financial support should be linked to the cost of efforts that protect the environmental, and incentives should be redesigned to put a value on sustainable agriculture, rather than boosting production at the expense of climate concerns.
Farmers should also be eligible for EU funds to help them transition away from high-emitting activities, the group said.
“As long-term investors, and stewards of our clients’ assets, we engage with businesses across the food and agriculture sector to help them transition towards a net-zero economy,” said Alexander Burr, ESG Policy Lead at Legal & General Investment Management.
“However, to truly effect change we seek stronger action from policymakers,” he said.
Agriculture accounts for around 10% of EU emissions.
A European Commission representative said it is committed to negotiating a farming policy that will support EU green goals, and its proposals would increase funding for sustainable schemes like carbon farming or organic production.
“The Commission supports a new CAP that includes strong environmental and climate ambition,” the representative said.
The investor group also includes Aviva Investors, Robeco and the FAIRR Initiative, an investor group focused on the food sector. FAIRR said it would consult its members, who manage a collective $30 trillion, on further areas of engagement on the issue.
Flying into Egypt in early February to make the most important presentation of his life, Ties van der Hoeven prepared by listening to the podcast 13 Minutes To The Moon – the story of how Nasa accomplished the lunar landings. The mission he was discussing with the Egyptian government was more earthbound in nature, but every bit as ambitious. It could even represent a giant leap for mankind.
Van der Hoeven is a co-founder of the Weather Makers, a Dutch firm of “holistic engineers” with a plan to regreen the Sinai peninsula – the small triangle of land that connects Egypt to Asia. Within a couple of decades, the Weather Makers believe, the Sinai could be transformed from a hot, dry, barren desert into a green haven teeming with life: forests, wetlands, farming land, wild flora and fauna. A regreened Sinai would alter local weather patterns and even change the direction of the winds, bringing more rain, the Weather Makers believe – hence their name.
“If anybody doubts that the Sinai can be regreened,” Van der Hoeven told the Egyptian delegates, an assortment of academics, representatives of ministers and military top brass, “then you have to understand that landing on the moon was once thought unrealistic. They didn’t lay out a full, detailed roadmap when they started, but they had the vision. And step by step they made it happen.”
Van der Hoeven is nothing if not persuasive. Voluble, energetic and down-to-earth, the 40-year-old engineer’s train of thought runs through disciplines from morphology to esoteric mysticism, often threatening to jump the tracks. But he is keenly focused on the future. “This world is ready for regenerative change,” he says. “It’s going to be a complete change of our behaviour as a species in the longer term. It is going to be a step as big as fire was for humanity.”
It sounds impossibly far-fetched, but not only is the Weather Makers’ plan perfectly feasible, they insist, it is precisely the type of project humanity should be getting its head around right now. In recent years, discussion about the climate crisis has predominantly focused on fossil fuels and greenhouse gases; now, we’re coming to realise that the other side of that coin is protecting and replenishing the natural world. There is no better mechanism for removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than nature, but in the past 5,000 years, human activity has reduced the Earth’s total biomass by an estimated 50%, and destroyed or degraded 70% of the world’s forests. As UN secretary general António Guterresput it last year: “Human activities are at the root of our descent toward chaos. But that means human action can help to solve it.”
The Weather Makers know this very well: their origins are in dredging, one of the heaviest industries there is. Over the past few centuries, dredging has helped humans alter the face of the planet on ever-greater scales. Trained as a morphological engineer, Van der Hoeven has spent the past decade in the industry, working on projects across the world, including the artificial islands of Dubai, whose creation involved large-scale dredging and land reclamation. He got sucked into the expat lifestyle there, he admits: drinking, eating, partying, “I lost a little bit of my soul.” Returning to the Netherlands in 2008, he began to reexamine his own profession: “What I could see is that the dredging industry had so much potential; we were just misusing it.”
Working for the Belgian company Deme, he devised a new method of dredging that was both more eco-friendly and more efficient. He used inexpensive sensors to model maritime conditions in real time – waves, currents, tides – so as to determine more precisely where and when it was safe to work. Trialling the system, he won over sceptical colleagues by living on the vessel with them, even cooking meals. Head office was also convinced when his technique saved a small fortune.
In January 2016, Van der Hoeven was contacted by Deme’s Egyptian representative, Malik Boukebbous, who had been asked by the Egyptian government to look into restoring Lake Bardawil, a lagoon on the north coast of the Sinai. The lake was once 20 to 40 metres deep, but today is just a few metres deep. Dredging the lake and cutting channels to allow more water in from the Mediterranean would make it deeper, cooler and less salty – all of which would boost fish stocks.
But Van der Hoeven did not want to stop there. “If I feel I’m on the right track, it’s difficult for people to distract me,” he says. He began looking at the Sinai peninsula in more detail: its history, weather patterns, geology, tides, plant and animal life, even religious texts. He took himself off other projects and spent long hours in his apartment surrounded by charts, maps, books, sketched diagrams. “People were afraid for me because I was forgetting myself. My friends were cooking for me.” The deeper he looked, the more potential he saw.
There is evidence that the Sinai once was green – as recently as 4,500 to 8,000 years ago. Cave paintings found there depict trees and plants. Records in the 1,500-year-old Saint Catherine’s monastery, near Mount Sinai, tally harvests of wood. Satellite images reveal a network of rivers flowing from the mountains in the south towards the Mediterranean.
The Sinai peninsula today, and how it could look after regreening. Composite: The Weather Makers
What turned the Sinai into a desert was, most likely, human activity. Wherever they settle, humans tend to chop down trees and clear land. This loss of vegetation affects the land’s ability to retain moisture. Grazing animals trample and consume plants when they try to grow back. The soil loses its structure and is washed away – hence the silt in Lake Bardawil. Van der Hoeven calculated the lake contained about 2.5bn cubic metres of silt. If one were to restore the Sinai, this vast reserve of nutrient-rich material was exactly what would be needed. “It became clear we had a massive opportunity,” he says. “It wasn’t the solution to a single problem; it was the solution to all the problems.”
By this stage, Van der Hoeven and Deme agreed that he would be best off working as a separate entity, so in 2017 he founded the Weather Makers with two friends: Gijs Bosman and Maddie Akkermans. Both appear to be steadying influences. Bosman, a project manager at Dutch engineering firm Royal HaskoningDHV and a friend since student days, had the ability to translate Van der Hoeven’s grand vision into actionable technical detail. Akkermans has a background in finance and economics. “Ties said, ‘I’m too chaotic. So I can’t do this alone,’” she says. “Having someone like me who could tell him the truth and keep him on track gave him the confidence to start a company.”
They consulted with experts across disciplines, in particular a handful of veterans who have been ploughing the eco-restoration furrow for decades. Van der Hoeven calls them his “Jedi”. The first of these is John D Liu, a Chinese-American ecologist with a background in broadcasting. Restoring a landscape as large and as degraded as the Sinai sounds like science fiction, but it has been done before. While Van der Hoeven was immersed in his research, a friend implored him to watch a documentary called Green Gold, which Liu had made for Dutch television in 2012. It chronicles the story of the Loess plateau, an area of northern China almost the size of France. In 1994, Liu, who was working as a television journalist in Beijing, was asked by the World Bank to film the start of an ambitious restoration project, led by a pioneering Chinese scientist, Li Rui. At that time, the Loess plateau was much like the Sinai: a dry, barren, heavily eroded landscape. The soil was washing away and silting up the Yellow river. Farmers could barely grow any crops. The plan to restore it was huge in scale but relatively low tech: planting trees on the hilltops; terracing the steep slopes (by hand); adding organic material to the soil; controlling grazing animals; retaining water. The transformation has been astonishing. Within 20 years, the deserts of the Loess plateau became green valleys and productive farmland, as Green Gold documents. “I watched it 35 times in a row,” says Van der Hoeven. “Seeing that, I thought, ‘Let’s go for it!’”
Ties van der Hoeven: ‘If we want to do something about global warming, we have to do something about deserts.’ Photograph: Judith Jockel/The Guardian
The Loess plateau project was also a turning point for Liu, he says – away from broadcasting and towards ecosystem restoration: “You start to see that everything is connected. It’s almost like you’re in the Matrix.” Despite his Jedi status, 68-year-old Liu is easygoing and conversational, more midwestern ex-hippy than cryptic Zen master. Since 2009, he has been an ambassador for Commonland, a Dutch nonprofit, and an adviser to Ecosystem Restoration Camps – a global network of hands-on, volunteer communities.
After watching Green Gold, the Weather Makers practically burst into Commonland’s Amsterdam headquarters to share their plans. “They were not going to be denied!” Liu recalls. “I said, ‘We have to work with these people, because this is the most audacious thesis I’ve ever seen.’”
Liu brought Van der Hoeven to China to see the Loess plateau first-hand. “To be in a place that had been essentially a desert where now it’s raining cats and dogs, and it’s not flooding, because it’s being infiltrated and retained in the system – it was all just so impressive to him.”
Through Liu, Van der Hoeven met another Jedi: Prof Millán Millán, a Spanish meteorologist. In the 1990s, Millán began investigating the disappearance of summer storms in eastern Spain for the European commission.“What I found is that the loss is directly linked to the building up of coastal areas,” he says. Rainfall in the region comes almost entirely from Mediterranean sea breezes. However, the breeze alone doesn’t carry enough water vapour to create a storm inland; it needs to pick up extra moisture, which it used to do from the marshes and wetlands along the coast. Over the past two centuries, however, these wetlands have been built on or converted to farming land. No additional moisture; no more storms. “Once you take too much vegetation out, it leads to desertification very quickly,” says Millán.
Such changes do not just affect the weather at a local level, Millán discovered: “The water vapour that doesn’t precipitate over the mountains goes back to the Mediterranean and accumulates in layers for about four or five days, and then it goes somewhere else: central Europe.” In other words, building on the Spanish coast was creating floods in Germany. Millán’s findings have gone largely unheeded by the European commission, he says. Now 79 and retired, he speaks with the gentle weariness of a long-ignored expert: “My criticism to them was: the old township barber would pull your teeth with pliers. It hurt, but it was effective. You’re still using those procedures, but you could save all your teeth.”
Millán’s research and Liu’s experience in the Loess plateau arrived at essentially the same conclusion. Chop down the trees, destroy the ecosystem, and the rains disappear; restore the ecosystem, make a wetter landscape, and the rains come back. Millán distilled his work down to a simple maxim: “Water begets water, soil is the womb, vegetation is the midwife.”
Regreening the Sinai is to some extent a question of restarting that “water begets water” feedback loop. After restoring Lake Bardawil, the second phase is to expand and restore the wetlands around it so as to evaporate more moisture and increase biodiversity. The Sinai coast is already a major global crossing point for migratory birds; restored wetlands would encourage more birds, which would add fertility and new plant species.
When it comes to restoring inland areas of the Sinai, there is another challenge: fresh water. This is where another Jedi came into play: John Todd, a mild-mannered marine biologist and a pioneer in ecological design. In the 1970s, frustrated by the narrowness of academia, Todd established the New Alchemy Institute, an alternative research community in Massachusetts dedicated to sustainable living. One of his innovations was the “eco machine” – a low-tech installation consisting of clear-sided water barrels covered by a greenhouse.
“An eco machine is basically a living technology,” Todd explains. The principle is that water flows from one barrel to the next, and each barrel contains a mini ecosystem: algae, plants, bacteria, fungi, worms, insects, fish; like a series of manmade ponds. As the water flows, it becomes cleaner and cleaner. “You could design one that would treat toxic waste or sewage, or you could design one to grow food. They are solar-driven, and have within them a very large amount of biodiversity – in a sense, they reflect the aggregate experience of life on Earth over the last 3.5bn years.” In the Sinai, eco machines would be used to grow plants and to produce fresh water.
Last autumn, the Weather Makers built their own eco machine on a pig farm on the outskirts of the Dutch city of s’-Hertogenbosch, where they are based. For the first step in a plan to change the world, it is not exactly prepossessing. It looks like a standard agricultural polytunnel. On a cold, drizzly day, Weather Maker Pieter van Hout gives me a virtual tour. Inside the greenhouse are six clear-sided barrels filled with water of various shades of green and brown. In some of the tanks is leaf litter and dead plant material. Van Hout points out the brown algae growing on the sides: phytoplankton, the basis of the food web, which feeds life further up the chain: insects, snails and, in one tank, fish (in the Sinai these would be edible tilapia).
The Weather Makers, from left, in their eco machine: Eduardo Vias Torres, Pieter van Hout, Maarten Lanters, Ties van der Hoeven, Maddie Akkermans, Gijs Bosman, Mohammed Nawlo. Photograph: Judith Jockel/The Guardian
Some water evaporates from the barrels and condenses on the inside skin of the greenhouse, where it is collected by a system of gutters. Even on a cold day in the Netherlands, there is a constant trickle into a container on the ground. In the heat of the Sinai, the cycle would run much faster, says Van Hout. The water feeding the eco machine would be salt water, but the water that condenses inside would be fresh water, which can then be used to irrigate plants. If the structure is designed correctly, one would only need to drum on the outside to create an artificial “rain” inside. When the plants and the soil inside the greenhouse reach a certain maturity, they become self-sustaining. The greenhouse can then be removed and the process repeated in a different spot. “The idea is that you may have 100 of these structures,” says John Todd. “And they’re spending five years in one site and then they’re moved, so these little ecologies are left behind.”
In the Sinai, the sediment from Lake Bardawil would be pumped up to the hills, 50km inland, where it would then trickle back down through a network of eco machines. The saltiness of the sediment is actually an asset, says Van Hout, in that it has preserved all the nutrients. Flushing them through the eco machines will “reactivate” them. Around the water tanks, they are now testing to see which salt-tolerant plant species, or halophytes, grow best. Van Hout proudly points out a stack of white plastic tubs containing silt freshly scooped from the bottom of Lake Bardawil. “This is what ecosystem restoration looks like in real life,” he laughs, “buckets of very expensive mud.”
Estimates of how much difference a regreened Sinai could make are hard to quantify. In terms of carbon sequestration, it would doubtless be “billions of tons”, says Van der Hoeven. But such metrics are not always helpful: if you convert atmospheric carbon into, say, phytoplankton, what happens when a fish eats that phytoplankton? Or when a bigger fish eats that fish?
Another useful measure could be global temperature. In addition to sequestering carbon, green areas also help cool the planet. Deserts are heat producers, reflecting around 60% to 70% of the solar energy that falls on them straight back into the atmosphere. In areas covered by vegetation, much of that solar energy is instead used in evapotranspiration: the process of condensation and evaporation by which water moves between plants and the atmosphere. “If vegetation comes back, you increase cover, you reduce temperature, you reduce solar reflection, you start creating a stable climate,” says Van der Hoeven. “If we want to do something about global warming, we have to do something about deserts.”
At present, the hot Sinai acts as a “vacuum cleaner”, drawing moist air from the Mediterranean and funnelling it towards the Indian Ocean. A cooler Sinai would mean less of that moisture being “lost”. Instead, it would fall as rain across the Middle East and north Africa, thus boosting the entire region’s natural potential. Van der Hoeven describes the Sinai peninsula as an “acupuncture point”: “There are certain points in this world where, if we accumulate our joint energy, we can make a big difference.”
The Sinai is also an acupuncture point geopolitically, however. Post-Arab spring, the region has become a battle zone between Egyptian security forces and Islamist insurgents. There have been numerous terrorist incidents: the bombing of a Russian airliner in 2015 killed 224 people; an attack on a Sufi mosque in 2017 killed more than 300 worshippers. Northern Sinai is currently a no-go area to outsiders, controlled by the military, and plagued by poverty, terrorism and human rights abuses. Since 2018 the military has restricted access to Lake Bardawil for local fishermen to just a few months a year, says Ahmed Salem, founder of the UK-based Sinai Foundation for Human Rights. “There’s a lot of suffering,” he says, “because they don’t have any other way to earn money and feed their families.” A restored landscape would bring tangible benefits to locals, says Salem, but it all depends on the president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi. “If Sisi really wants to help them [the Weather Makers], it will be OK for them because he’s like a god in Egypt. But if he doesn’t, they will fail.”
But the Sisi government seems to have recognised that ecosystem regeneration could fix many problems at once: food security, poverty, political stability, climate goals, as well as the potential for a green project of international renown. The government is close to signing contracts for the first phase of the restoration plan, which covers the dredging of Lake Bardawil. Subsequent phases may well require financial support from external bodies such as the EU.
As outsiders, the Weather Makers are aware their plan will require local support, cooperation and labour. Because of the military restrictions, none of them has visited Lake Bardawil, although they have forged links with an organic farm in southern Sinai named Habiba. Habiba was established in 1994, by Maged El Said, a charismatic, Cairo-born tour operator who fell in love with the region. Originally it was a beach resort, but in 2007 El Said branched into organic farming, and Habiba now connects other farms, local Bedouin tribes and academic institutions.
The Weather Makers have forged links with Habiba organic farm in southern Sinai. Photograph: Courtesy of Maged El Said
El Said has some reservations about the Weather Makers’ plan: “It’s a big shiny project, but also you’re drastically changing the environment, the flora and fauna. I don’t know if there will be side-effects.” But in terms of the larger mission, they are very much aligned: “We are all in the same boat. Desertification and climate change is happening so fast, so we need action on the ground. Enough of workshops, enough seminars, talks, talks, talks.”
On a global level, the tide is turning in the Weather Makers’ direction. Discussions about regreening, reforestation and rewilding have been growing in volume and urgency, boosted by high-profile advocates such as Greta Thunberg, David Attenborough and British ecologist Thomas Crowther, who made headlines in 2019 with research suggesting the climate crisis could be solved by planting 1tn trees (he later acknowledged it was not quite that simple).
This year marks the beginning of the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, “a rallying call for the protection and revival of ecosystems around the world”. The UN hopes to restore 350m hectares of land by 2030, which could remove an additional 13 to 26 gigatons of carbon from the atmosphere. After decades of compartmentalising environmental issues and missing its own targets, the UN, too, has come to realise that the only viable solution is to do it all at once. It particularly wants to rally younger people to the cause; its social media campaigns carry a “generation restoration” hashtag. “Ecosystem restoration is not a technical challenge; it’s a social challenge,” says Tim Christophersen, head of the Nature for Climate branch at the UN Environment Programme.
Nations and corporations are also making ever more ambitious commitments to regreening, even if they are struggling to live up to them. The UK, for example, plans to create 30,000 hectares of woodland a year by 2025. India has pledged to restore 26m hectares of degraded land by 2030. Africa’s Great Green Wall, “the world’s largest ecosystem restoration project”, aims to plant an 8,000km line of trees across the Sahara Desert, from Senegal to Djibouti (14 years on, it is only around 15% complete). Meanwhile, green companies are taking root, such as Ecosia, the Berlin-based search engine, which to date has planted more than 120m trees around the world.
“The main challenge,” Christophersen says, “is the lack of human imagination; our inability to see a different future because we’re staring down this dystopian path of pandemic, climate change, biodiversity loss. But the collective awareness that we are in this together is a huge opportunity. People don’t have a problem imagining what a four-lane highway would look like. But to imagine a restored landscape of over a million hectares – nobody knows what that would look like because it hasn’t really been done before.”
Van der Hoeven would agree. He cites Yuval Noah Hariri’s book Sapiens, which argues that humans prevailed because of our ability to share information, ideas, stories: “We were able to believe in a myth – in something which was not there yet.”
Regreening the Sinai is presently little more than a myth, just as the Apollo missions once were; but it now exists in the imagination, as a signpost for the future we aspire to. The more it is shared, the more likely it is to happen. It could come to be a turning point – an acupuncture point: “We’re not going to change humanity by saying, ‘Everything has to be less,’” says Van der Hoeven. “No, we have to do more of the good things. Why don’t we come together and do something in a positive way?”
Bread Flour is milled from higher protein wheat making it exceptional for bread baking. This 100% organic flour is excellent for yeast breads as well as pizza crusts, rolls, and artisan breads.
Projected and forecast revenue values are in constant U.S. dollars, unadjusted for inflation. Product values and regional markets are estimated by market analyst, data analyst and people from related industry, based on companys’ revenue and applications market respectively.”
The report demonstrates detail coverage of Organic Bread Flour industry and main market trends. The data sources include but not limited to reports of companys,international organizations and governments, MMI market surveys,and related industry news. The market research includes historical and forecast data from like demand, application details, price trends, and company shares of the leading Organic Bread Flour by geography, especially focuses on the key regions like United States, European Union, China, and other regions.
In addition, the report provides insight into main drivers,challenges,opportunities and risk of the market and strategies of suppliers. Key players are profiled as well with their market shares in the global Organic Bread Flour market discussed. Overall, this report covers the historical situation, present status and the future prospects of the global Organic Bread Flour market for 2016-2026. Moreover,the impact of COVID-19 is also concerned. Since outbreak in December 2019, the COVID-19 virus has spread to over 100 countries and caused huge losses of lives and economy, and the global manufacturing, tourism and financial markets have been hit hard,while the online market increase. Fortunately, with the development of vaccine and other effort by global governments and orgnizations, the nagetive impact of COVID-19 is excepted to subside and the global ecnomy is excepted to recover. Studying and analyzing the impact of Coronavirus COVID-19 on the Organic Bread Flour industry, the report provide in-depth analysis and professtional advices on how to face the post COIVD-19 period.
Market Segment by Product Type Machine Milled Flour Stone Ground Flour
Market Segment by Product Application Commercial Use Home Use
Finally, the report provides detailed profile and data information analysis of leading company. General Mills Fairheaven Organic Flour Mill King Arthur Flour To Your Health Sprouted Flour Great River Organic Milling Ardent Mills Doves Farm Foods Bay State Milling Company Bob’s red mill Aryan International Archer Daniels Midland(ADM) Dunany Flour Shipton Mill Ltd Beidahuang WuGu-Kang Food
Report Includes: – xx data tables (appendix tables) – Overview of global Organic Bread Flour market – An detailed key players analysis across regions – Analyses of global market trends, with historical data, estimates for 2021 and projections of compound annual growth rates (CAGRs) through 2026 – Insights into regulatory and environmental developments – Information on the supply and demand scenario and evaluation of technological and investment opportunities in the Organic Bread Flour market – Profiles of major players in the industry, including General Mills, Fairheaven Organic Flour Mill, King Arthur Flour, To Your Health Sprouted Flour, Great River Organic Milling…..
Research Objectives 1.To study and analyze the global Organic Bread Flour consumption (value & volume) by key regions/countries, product type and application, history data from 2016 to 2020, and forecast to 2026. 2.To understand the structure of Organic Bread Flour market by identifying its various subsegments. 3.Focuses on the key global Organic Bread Flour manufacturers, to define, describe and analyze the sales volume, value, market share, market competition landscape, Porter’s five forces analysis, SWOT analysis and development plans in next few years. 4.To analyze the Organic Bread Flour with respect to individual growth trends, future prospects, and their contribution to the total market. 5.To share detailed information about the key factors influencing the growth of the market (growth potential, opportunities, drivers, industry-specific challenges and risks). 6.To project the consumption of Organic Bread Flour submarkets, with respect to key regions (along with their respective key countries). 7.To analyze competitive developments such as expansions, agreements, new product launches, and acquisitions in the market. 8.To strategically profile the key players and comprehensively analyze their growth strategies.
Table of Contents:
Global Organic Bread Flour Market Research Report 2021, Forecast to 2026
1 Market Study Overview 1.1 Study Objectives 1.2 Organic Bread Flour Introduce 1.3 Combined with the Analysis of Macroeconomic Indicators 1.4 Brief Description of Research methods 1.5 Market Breakdown and Data Triangulation
2 Global Trend Summary 2.1 Organic Bread Flour Segment by Type 2.1.1 Machine Milled Flour 2.1.2 Stone Ground Flour 2.2 Market Analysis by Application 2.2.1 Commercial Use 2.2.2 Home Use 2.3 Global Organic Bread Flour Market Comparison by Regions (2016-2026) 2.3.1 Global Organic Bread Flour Market Size (2016-2026) 2.3.2 North America Organic Bread Flour Status and Prospect (2016-2026) 2.3.3 Europe Organic Bread Flour Status and Prospect (2016-2026) 2.3.4 China Organic Bread Flour Status and Prospect (2016-2026) 2.3.5 Japan Organic Bread Flour Status and Prospect (2016-2026) 2.3.6 Southeast Asia Organic Bread Flour Status and Prospect (2016-2026) 2.4 Basic Product Information 2.4.1 Basic Product Information & Technology Development History 2.4.2 Product Manufacturing Process 2.4.3 Interview with Major Market Participants 2.4.4 High-end Market Analysis and Forecast 2.5 Coronavirus Disease 2019 (Covid-19): Organic Bread Flour Industry Impact 2.5.1 Organic Bread Flour Business Impact Assessment – Covid-19 2.5.2 Market Trends and Organic Bread Flour Potential Opportunities in the COVID-19 Landscape 2.5.3 Measures / Proposal against Covid-19
3 Competition by Manufacturer 3.1 Global Organic Bread Flour Sales and Market Share by Manufacturer (2016-2021) 3.2 Global Organic Bread Flour Revenue and Market Share by Manufacturer (2016-2021) 3.3 Global Organic Bread Flour Industry Concentration Ratio (CR5 and HHI) 3.4 Top 5 Organic Bread Flour Manufacturer Market Share 3.5 Top 10 Organic Bread Flour Manufacturer Market Share 3.6 Date of Key Manufacturers Enter into Organic Bread Flour Market 3.7 Key Manufacturers Organic Bread Flour Key Manufacturers 3.8 Mergers & Acquisitions Planning
4 Analysis of Organic Bread Flour Industry Key Manufacturers 4.1 General Mills 4.1.1 Compan Detail 4.1.2 General Mills Organic Bread Flour Product Introduction, Application and Specification 4.1.3 General Mills 164 Sales, Price, Cost, Gross Margin, and Revenue (2016-2021) 4.1.4 Main Business Overview 4.1.5 General Mills News 4.2 Fairheaven Organic Flour Mill 4.2.1 Compan Detail 4.2.2 Fairheaven Organic Flour Mill Organic Bread Flour Product Introduction, Application and Specification 4.2.3 Fairheaven Organic Flour Mill Organic Bread Flour Sales, Price, Cost, Gross Margin, and Revenue (2016-2021) 4.2.4 Main Business Overview 4.2.5 General Mills News 4.3 King Arthur Flour 4.3.1 Compan Detail 4.3.2 King Arthur Flour Organic Bread Flour Product Introduction, Application and Specification 4.3.3 King Arthur Flour Organic Bread Flour Sales, Price, Cost, Gross Margin, and Revenue (2016-2021) 4.3.4 Main Business Overview 4.3.5 King Arthur Flour News 4.4 To Your Health Sprouted Flour 4.4.1 Compan Detail 4.4.2 To Your Health Sprouted Flour Organic Bread Flour Product Introduction, Application and Specification 4.4.3 To Your Health Sprouted Flour Organic Bread Flour Sales, Price, Cost, Gross Margin, and Revenue (2016-2021) 4.4.4 Main Business Overview 4.4.5 To Your Health Sprouted Flour News 4.5 Great River Organic Milling 4.5.1 Compan Detail 4.5.2 To Your Health Sprouted Flour Organic Bread Flour Product Introduction, Application and Specification 4.5.3 Great River Organic Milling Organic Bread Flour Sales, Price, Cost, Gross Margin, and Revenue (2016-2021) 4.5.4 Main Business Overview 4.5.5 Great River Organic Milling News 4.6 Ardent Mills 4.6.1 Compan Detail 4.6.2 Ardent Mills Organic Bread Flour Product Introduction, Application and Specification 4.6.3 Ardent Mills Organic Bread Flour Sales, Price, Cost, Gross Margin, and Revenue (2016-2021) 4.6.4 Main Business Overview 4.6.5 Ardent Mills News 4.7 Doves Farm Foods 4.7.1 Compan Detail 4.7.2 Doves Farm Foods Organic Bread Flour Product Introduction, Application and Specification 4.7.3 Doves Farm Foods Organic Bread Flour Sales, Price, Cost, Gross Margin, and Revenue (2016-2021) 4.7.4 Main Business Overview 4.7.4 Main Business Overview
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<h2 class="fe_heading2">Top 10 Trends in Agricultural Biologicals Market Global Forecast to 2022 By Emerging Trends, Future Growth, Top Key Players, Product Type, Revenue Analysis, Demand Forecast</h2>
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Japan, Japan, Tue, 16 Mar 2021 08:10:08 / Comserve Inc. / — The agricultural biologicals market was valued at USD 5.10 billion in 2015 and is projected to have a CAGR of 12.76% from 2016 to 2022.
The increased adoption of organic products is expected to lead to the growth of the global agricultural biologicals market. Government bodies of various nations across the globe are promoting noteworthy benefits offered by agricultural biologicals, which has further boosted the growth of this market.
“The Final Report will cover the impact analysis of COVID-19 on this industry (Global And Regional Market).”
“Agricultural inoculants market is expected to grow at a rapid pace from 2016 to 2022”
The agricultural inoculants market is a developing sector, wherein the growth of this market is propelled by the rise in the cost & demand for fertilizers & pesticides and rise in organic and eco-friendly farming practices. Due to the high agronomic efficiency and reduced production costs of using inoculants the demand for such products is rising. Environmental concerns such as water contamination due to nitrates, acidification of soils, and greenhouse gas emissions related to the use of nitrogen fertilizers have led to an increase in the usage of inoculants containing plant growth promoting microorganisms to increase the crop yield.
“North American biological seed treatment market led with the largest share in 2015” The biological seed treatment market is expected to grow at a high rate in the crop protection industry. Rising demand for high potential seeds backed by higher demand for food has resulted in an increase in the growth of this market. Biological seed treatment forms a minor share in the seed treatment industry. However, this market is expected to grow due to rising health awareness among farmers with respect to the increasing toxicity of agrochemicals and strict government legislations.
“Bionematicides market to grow at a high pace globally (2016-2022)” High level of crop infestation by nematodes, rise in biocontrol seed treatment solutions and replacement of chemical fumigants with biological products is driving the growth for this market. The European region is likely to be the fastest growing region for this market due to a higher adoption rate of biologicals for the control of nematodes.
“Europe: High growth is expected in the agricultural biologicals industry” Europe is projected to be the fastest-growing market for the period considered for this study, due to the increase in adoption of advanced biological production techniques by farmers operating in the region. Increase in demand for agricultural biological products is likely to occur owing to the increasing number of stringent regulations in the region during the forecast period.
Break-up of Primaries:
By Company Type: Tier 1 – 50 %, Tier 2 – 30%, and Tier 3 – 20%
By Designation: C Level – 28%, Director Level – 22%, and Others – 50%
By Region: North America – 40%, Europe – 30%, Asia-Pacific – 21%, and RoW – 9%
“The Final Report will cover the impact analysis of COVID-19 on this industry (Global And Regional Market).”
Research Coverage:
The report segments the top 10 trends in the agricultural biologicals industry and includes biopesticides, biofertilizers, biostimulants, agricultural microbials, agricultural inoculants, biological seed treatment, among others. In terms of insights, this research report has focused on various levels of analyses–competitive landscape, regional market analysis, and company profiles, which together comprise and discuss the basic views on the emerging & high-growth segments of the global agricultural biologicals industry, high-growth regions, countries, government initiatives, drivers, restraints, and opportunities.
Reasons to buy this report:
To get a comprehensive overview of the agricultural biologicals industry
To gain wide-ranging information about the top players in this industry, their product portfolios, and key strategies adopted by them
To gain insights about the major countries/regions in which the agricultural biologicals industry is flourishing
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1 INTRODUCTION 19 1.1 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY 19 1.2 MARKET DEFINITIONS 20 1.3 YEARS CONSIDERED 21 1.4 CURRENCY 21 1.5 STAKEHOLDERS 21 2 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 22 2.1 RESEARCH DATA 22 2.1.1 SECONDARY DATA 23 2.1.1.1 Key data from secondary sources 23 2.1.2 PRIMARY DATA 24 2.1.2.1 Key data from primary sources 24 2.2 FACTOR ANALYSIS 25 2.2.1 INTRODUCTION 25 2.2.2 DEMAND-SIDE ANALYSIS 25 2.2.2.1 Increasing food demand by the growing population 25 2.2.2.2 Dynamic growth in the organic food industry 26 2.2.3 SUPPLY-SIDE ANALYSIS 28 2.2.3.1 Growth in biofertilizers and biopesticides markets 28 2.2.3.2 Fluctuation in raw material prices 28 2.3 MARKET SIZE +0000IMATION 29 2.4 MARKET BREAKDOWN AND DATA TRIANGULATION 31 2.5 RESEARCH ASSUMPTIONS AND LIMITATIONS 32 2.5.1 ASSUMPTIONS 32 2.5.2 LIMITATIONS 33 3 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 34 4 PREMIUM INSIGHTS 37 4.1 ATTRACTIVE OPPORTUNITIES IN THE AGRICULTURAL BIOLOGICALS MARKET 37 4.2 AGRICULTURAL BIOLOGICALS MARKET: BY TYPE 38 4.3 BIOPESTICIDES 38 4.4 LIFE CYCLE ANALYSIS: AGRICULTURAL BIOLOGICALS MARKET 39 5 AGRICULTURAL BIOLOGICALS 40
“The Final Report will cover the impact analysis of COVID-19 on this industry (Global And Regional Market).”
The dynamic nature of business environment in the current global economy is raising the need amongst business professionals to update themselves with current situations in the market. To cater such needs, Shibuya Data Count provides market research reports to various business professionals across different industry verticals, such as healthcare & pharmaceutical, IT & telecom, chemicals and advanced materials, consumer goods & food, energy & power, manufacturing & construction, industrial automation & equipment and agriculture & allied activities amongst others.
<p>For more information, please contact:</p><b>Hina Miyazu</b><p>Shibuya Data Count<br />Email: sales@sdki.jp<br />Tel: + 81 3 45720790</p> <p>The post <a href="https://www.comserveonline.com/news-releases/top-10-trends-in-agricultural-biologicals-market-global-forecast-to-2022-by-emerging-trends-future-growth-top-key-players-product-type-revenue-analysis-demand-forecast/10046173" rel="nofollow">Top 10 Trends in Agricultural Biologicals Market Global Forecast to 2022 By Emerging Trends, Future Growth, Top Key Players, Product Type, Revenue Analysis, Demand Forecast</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.comserveonline.com/" rel="nofollow">Comserveonline</a>.
As of Friday, 03-12-2021 23:59, the latest Comtex SmarTrend® Alert,
an automated pattern recognition system, indicated an UPTREND on
05-29-2012 for DOW @ $31.83.
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