Food safety

Plant breeding innovations can help to future proof our farming system

Reading the opinion of Greens / EFA members of the European Parliament on plant breeding, one can’t help but be amazed by their obsession with GMOs, writes Garlich von Essen.

Mercosur: Don’t sacrifice our food standards and tropical forests for trade

The trade agreement currently being negotiated by the EU and Morcosur will increase poverty and accelerate the demise of European farmers by subjecting them to unfair competition, argue Perrine Fournier and Yannick Jadot.

Innovation in animal health: Sifting the tangible actions from the political ideas

Over the past fifty years, the EU has done a stellar job in moving from a very fragmented national approach to animal disease control to a progressively more harmonised system of animal health measures, disease surveillance, diagnosis and control, writes Roxane Feller.  

Equal standards for food across the EU: A matter of taste? No, a matter of quality!

What is in the food that we buy? It’s a question whose answer is less certain than it should be. Shockingly, many food manufacturers find it acceptable to sell their food with standard packaging throughout the EU, but with very different content, and often lower quality, in different countries, writes Lilyana Pavlova.  

Combat digestive diseases with tighter controls on the alcohol and food industry

You are what you eat, the saying goes, but what about what we drink? Dietary regulations across Europe need to be stricter if digestive disease rates are to fall, writes Thierry Ponchon.

Commission’s formaldehyde U-turn shows need to separate science from politics, emotion

Chemicals, even naturally occurring ones, often sound scary, and they certainly can be hazardous. But most, when appropriately managed, deliver significant benefits, writes Rick Phillips.

No, the EU does not want to ban your chips

Recently, headlines in Germany and Austria might have made you shiver with fear: “The. EU. Wants. To. Ban. Crispy. Chips”. No less! The same EU which dictates the shape of our bananas and cucumbers is now meddling with our chips. Or is it, asks Monique Goyens.

Fipronil crisis: Why should we keep on using these toxic substances?

The withdrawal of millions of eggs from the market produced in the Netherlands and Belgium should motivate the EU to shift towards a different model of agriculture, argues Martin Dermine.

Public health hangs in the balance with salmonella risk

Salmonella, one of Europe’s most prevalent food-borne diseases, has been on the retreat the past decade, but EU experts have so far failed to protect a two-year deadlock that could see one of the most important tools in the fight against salmonella banned, writes Randall Ennis.

Bayer-Monsanto’s ugly offspring

As safety watchdogs battle over just how toxic and dangerous Monsanto’s controversial weed-killer glyphosate actually is, the even more toxic half-brother from Bayer, glufosinate, is making a timely return, warns Mute Schimpf.

Pesticide bans are catch-22 for landowners

Landowners need crop protection products to feed our growing population. By removing crop protection products from the market, the EU is endangering its own food security, writes Robert de Graeff.

New GM crops once again fail the safety test

As the world focuses elsewhere, two untested varieties of genetically modified maize are slowly manoeuvring their way through the legislative hoops of the European institutions towards Europe’s fields, writes Mute Schimpf.  

Commission’s endocrine disruptor plan is illegal, inadequate and woefully late

European Commission draft rules to identify and ultimately ban endocrine disrupters are illegal because they clash with existing pesticide and biocide regulations, Alice Bernard writes. The environmental lawyer warned that EU judges could throw out the changes to the long-awaited scientific criteria for the chemicals.

Glyphosate: Understanding the controversy

The debate over glyphosate has not been a scientific discussion but an activists’ war against ‘Big Agri’. Glyphosate is scientifically proven to be safe and should be re-authorised, writes André Heitz.

Animal health matters: Can EU legislation deliver?

Disease outbreaks such as Ebola and avian influenza serve as a stark reminder that human and animal health will always be inter-connected, writes Roxane Feller.

Freedom of choice over GMO cultivation is a step forward

The European Parliament made history on 15 January this year, when it adopted the so-called opt-out proposal for genetically modified organisms (GMO). The decision to grant national governments this freedom and legal certainty was vital in a time of such euroscepticism, writes Elisabeth Köstinger. 

From farm to fork: Investing globally in food safety on World Health Day

On World Health Day (7 April), European Commissioners Vytenis Andriukaitis and Neven Mimica highlight the importance of food safety, malnutrition, and fighting health threats both in the Union and in developing countries.

Not only hunger, but malnutrition, too

Continued growth in developing countries, along with poverty-reduction policies, have helped to improve both income and food security globally. Still, eradicating hunger remains an enormous challenge that has an impact on every other attempt to improve lives, writes José Graziano da Silva.

The CAR: it doesn’t get much worse than this

The Central African Republic (CAR) – torn apart since December by widespread conflict and killings of civilians by armed groups – is unravelling. The consequences are already catastrophic for many people. Almost the entire population is in desperate need of food, writes Arif Husain.

Climate change and food security: The world is watching

The European Union and its member states must act to provide its scientists with the tools they need to ensure and enhance food security at a time of massive global changes. This needs to happen today – not tomorrow – as the world is watching, writes Evan O’Connell.

Lab-grown burgers cannot provide a secure future for Africa

Small-scale agriculture is key to feeding Africans, not expensive stem-cell burgers cooked up in a western laboratory, writes John Vidal.

How lack of food security is failing a starving world

Starvation is a symptom of a larger problem involving land, health, power and ecological damage, writes the Guardian, content partner of EURACTIV’s Development Policy section.

Climate change is worsening world hunger

The livelihood of millions of vulnerable communities already depends on the availability of simple foodstuffs, and now climate change is further threatening that precarious existence, say four top opinion-makers.