A new Director General for the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) will be elected in June by the nearly 200 countries, including the United States, which are members of this organization. While the UN’s World Food Programme is concentrated on the logistics of providing food urgently to those in need, the […]
Didier Guillaume, French Minister for Agriculture and Food, and François de Rugy, French Minister for Environment, recently announced that they were putting in place a working group to strengthen the measures taken to protect bees and other pollinating insects from the negative impacts of Varroa mites and phytopharmaceutical products. In June of last year, the […]
In February 2016, France become the first country in the world to establish a strong law against food waste. Adopted unanimously by both chambers of French Congress, the law strengthens the commitment of public policy makers to reduce by half loss and waste of food by 2025. Its principle measure consists of requiring each supermarket […]
On Dec. 13, 2018, the 4 per 1000 Initiative held its annual meeting in Katowice, on the sidelines of the COP24 (24th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change).The discussions among participants were fruitful and marked the entry of a dynamic phase and the need to start demonstrating the […]
How can we reduce our dependence on plastic? In Brittany, in the town of Saint Malo, two entrepreneurs had the idea of tapping into an abundant natural resource: algae. In 2010, they created the company Algopack that today has several employees working on the project. Each second, 500 kilograms of plastics are dumped into the […]
According to the Food Sustainability Index, France has maintained its position in first place for food sustainability for the third consecutive year. The Food Sustainability Index, created and ran by The Economist Intelligence Unit and the Barilla Center for Food and Nutrition, is a useful tool used to compare policies internationally. This global chart of […]
The 24th Conference of the Parties (COP24) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change has taken place in Katowice, Poland this month. Besides its participation as part of the French Delegation in the negotiations themselves (on the themes of agriculture and soils sector) France has taken the opportunity to host several side events […]
The annual interministerial symposium between the French ministries of Agriculture and Food, Health, the Environment, and Research and Higher Education took place November 14. This year’s theme was the research and innovation issues and needs surrounding the fight against antimicrobial resistance, a major public health challenge. Resistance to antibiotics is a global public health problem […]
According to France’s national inventory of natural heritage, there are 35 times more endemic plants in France’s overseas territories than in mainland France, without even counting marine species. Such richness is increasingly the subject of attention of French public authorities. Apart from traditional valuations, new perspectives are taking shape with bioeconomy: energy, biofertilizers, biofuels, and […]
The French parliament has approved a new large-scale reform of the country’s agriculture and food policy. The government proposed this law based on ideas that came out of the Estates-General of Food, a major series of summits based around improving France’s agriculture and food policies. A significant part of the law is devoted to ensuring […]