EU-Mercosur deal: Is the agreement a threat to European agriculture? - by Sofía S.Manzanaro

Twenty years after negotiations began, the European Union and the South American trade bloc Mercosur reached a free-trade agreement on Friday. Deemed "historic" by European Commission president Jean Claude Juncker, both sides currently trade over €88 billion in goods and €34 billion in services each year.

However, the treaty has not satisfied all member states. While French President Emmanuel Macron said it was a "good agreement" that met key French demands, other factions in France did not agree.

France is the EU's largest farming power. French farmers' groups and environmentalists have regularly raised concerns about the risk of a surge in South American agricultural exports to Europe. In addition, critics argue there are lower standards for produce in the Mercosur countries and insist that they would oppose the deal unless they see proper traceability and good livestock practices in the beef sector.

"We won't have an accord at any price. The story isn't finished," agriculture minister Didier Guillaume told lawmakers on Tuesday.

Read more at: 
EU-Mercosur deal: Is the agreement a threat to European agriculture? | Euronews

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Agri-Finance:The Major Players in Agri-Finance - by Shawn Williamson

A few years ago an accountant I know told me about some of her clients. They were a couple of guys on a mission to assemble hundreds of millions of dollars of U.S. farmland for a Canadian pension fund. That’s when I started to realize there’s a lot more going on in the world of agri-finance than you hear about. Here are some of the big players in the agri-finance universe.

The types of players include banks that specialize in agricultural loans, non-bank finance companies that do land and equipment loans, farmer-owned lending co-ops, REITs that own and manage farm real estate, private equity funds that buy cropland, sovereign wealth funds, and, of course, pension funds.

One of the big agri-finance players, the Dutch Rabo AgriFinance in Chesterfield, Missouri, is headquartered only half an hour from my office. I recently sat down with their executive vice president, Curt Hudnutt, to talk about their market share in ag lending and the overall condition of agricultural loans. Rabo makes land, operating, and equipment loans. The company also sells crop insurance and offers commodity price hedging.

One of my goals was to show you the five largest agricultural lenders in the United States. Sounds easy, right? It isn’t. You have to pull together data from the Federal Reserve and beyond, and you have to specify the criteria. Are you talking about banks that do more than half of their lending to farms, dollars in farm real estate loans, number of farm loans, or some other metric? I think the fairest way to rank them is by how many dollars in ag loans a retail lending entity held as of the end of the most recent quarter. I thought this list would just be five large banks, but I was wrong. Here are the top five ag lenders as of September 30, 2018:

1. Farm Credit Services of America (ACA)
2. Farm Credit Mid America (ACA)
3. MetLife Insurance
4. Rabo Agrifinance / Rabo Bank NA
5. Compeer Financial (ACA)

Read more at The Major Players in Agri-Finance | Successful Farming

Pollution: Meat Is Murder — On the Climate, Anyway - Americans eat 60 percent more than Europeans

One of the leading sources of methane

Beware the cows !

Sure, it looks like we've got them where we want them, penned up in farms, easily led to the meat-packing plants. But in an ongoing display of passive resistance, they may be trying to take us with them.

 Beyond the fat and cholesterol, they're also one of the leading sources of methane — a planet-warming greenhouse gas with 25 times the punch of carbon dioxide on a 100-year time scale. And those emissions are expected to go up planet-wide as developing countries urbanize and get richer, putting a Western-style diet within the reach of billions more people.

In the United States alone, what the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) euphemistically calls "enteric fermentation" — the belches and farts of livestock, mostly cattle — is the second-biggest source of US methane emissions. Those emissions added up to the equivalent of 648 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2014. Their manure added another 60 million, according to an EPA report released last week.

 And when you total up the effect of all the feed, fertilizer, and fuel involved in modern farming, that quarter-pound cheeseburger ends up having the same carbon footprint as a nearly seven-mile (11-kilometer) drive, said Dawn Undurraga, a nutritionist with the nonprofit Environmental Working Group.

 "Americans eat a huge amount of meat," Undurraga said. "We eat 60 percent more than Europeans and somewhere between 150 or 200 percent of our needs."

Note Almere Digest: Pollution, not only by industry, but also as a result of agriculture, livestock, meat production industry, etc.etc, will eventually kill us all, if we don't act now. 

 If you are a parent and not discussing these issues with your children, to make sure they become aware of this disaster, you are basically just as criminal as the polluters. Watch programs on TV like "Meat is murder - on the climate anyway" (see story above),  do it together as a family, and talk about it afterwards. 

Might not be as much fun as sport activities, music concerts. or reality shows, but certainly will better prepare your kids for the future and hopefully also make them realize that being an "activist" is not a stigma or a dirty word. 

Read more: Meat Is Murder — On the Climate, Anyway | VICE News

GMO Foods and Pesticides: Monsanto seeks retraction of WHO report linking herbicide to cancer - by Carey Gillam

Monsanto Co, maker of the world’s most widely-used herbicide, Roundup, wants an international health organization to retract a report linking the chief ingredient in Roundup to cancer.

The company said on Tuesday that the report, issued on Friday by the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), was biased and contradicts regulatory findings that the ingredient, glyphosate, is safe when used as labeled.

Monsanto Co, maker of the world’s most widely-used herbicide, Roundup, wants an international health organization to retract a report linking the chief ingredient in Roundup to cancer.

The company said on Tuesday that the report, issued on Friday by the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), was biased and contradicts regulatory findings that the ingredient, glyphosate, is safe when used as labeled.

 
Read more: Monsanto seeks retraction of WHO report linking herbicide to cancer - The Globe and Mail

Netherlands: Agricultural exports top 80 billion Euros

Agricultural exports from the Netherlands topped 80 billion Euros last year (80.7 billion), up from 2013's record levels of 79 billion. Dutch Minister for Agriculture Sharon Dijksma made the customary announcement at the International Green Week in Berlin, the world's largest agricultural trade fair. The figures are based on LEI Wageningen UR estimates, and as in previous years, definitive figures are expected this spring.

Read more: Netherlands: Agricultural exports top 80 billion Euros

European Council - Successful EU-Africa Summit

The 4th EU-Africa Summit, April 2 - 3, 2014 brought together more than 60 EU and African leaders, and a total of 90 delegations, to discuss the future of EU-Africa relations and reinforce links between the two continents. In the summit declaration, leaders highlighted the close nature of EU-Africa relations and the shared values of democracy, respect for human rights, the rule of law and good governance as well as the right to development.

Leaders recognised the importance of peace and security as essential prerequisites for development and prosperity. In particular, they confirmed their commitment to enhancing political dialogue on international criminal justice and universal jurisdiction. Leaders also gave their support to the African aspiration and commitment to ensuring peace and stability in Africa and agreed to support African capabilities in this area through any available means, with a particular focus on capacity-building. Both continents agreed to strengthen common effort to fight international terrorism and to combat the spread.

Leaders pledged to pursue policies to create jobs and stimulate long-term growth on both continents. In particular the two continents agreed to cooperate more closely in the field of maritime policy. The EU also underlined its commitment to continuing to support African countries in the preparation of climate-resilient and low-emission development strategies. Leaders on both sides highlighted the importance of ensuring prudent and transparent management of respective natural resources, and responsible mineral sourcing.

The summit declaration also underlines the importance of encouraging greater investment and economic development within and between countries in both continents, alongside developing transport, access to drinking water and to sustainable and affordable energy.  successful

Read more: European Council - EU-Africa summit 2014