Day: October 24, 2018

Environmental, Farm Animals, General News, Live Transport

EU: Industrial Farming Budget Is Now Being Prepared. Add Your Voice To Make Things Better – Please Sign The Open Letter.

 

EU- Flagge

 

Industrial farming kills bees with pesticides, over-fertilises our fields, and tortures animals in factory farms. And yet, it is subsidised with €59 billion every year from our taxes. [1] What more? This is the biggest part of the EU budget! [2]

Right now, politicians are discussing how to redistribute this money. Will future subsidies go to farmers who feed us healthy food and treat animals humanely? Or will it remain as bad as it is now?

Thousands of us, farmers and consumers, from Malta to Aarhus, from Warsaw to Madrid, will come together next weekend in days of action. We’ll protest, we’ll cook sustainable food for the public, we’ll teach about sustainable farming and we’ll demand a U-turn away from harmful farming practices.

Today we’re launching an open letter, which we will publish in a press release on Friday to open the action days. We need a great big boom for the start: 100,000 signatures, in order to show the media and decision-makers that we, Europeans, care about our food and our farming. Please sign now.

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I want to be one of the 100,000 – I’ll sign the open letter

At last, some of the European Ministers of Agriculture are realising the disaster happening before our eyes: insects, pollinators of our plants and nourishment for birds, are vanishing. [3] The German government, for instance, is discussing a program to protect insects. The Ministry for the Environment wants to spend €100 million per year on the program (great!), but the Minister of Agriculture is not in favour of it. [4] €100 million is a lot of money, but it’s a tiny amount compared to €59 billion that industrial farming gets from the EU. Instead of taking decisive action, they are spending their time bickering! This sort of thing is happening all over the EU.

But this arguing also shows we have an opportunity. Some politicians are open to our call for better farming. But others still aren’t listening. That is why we chose a pot and a spoon as symbols for the campaign: We will bang one against another and make enough noise to be heard.

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In another three weeks we will repeat our action, this time in Brussels. We will show up in front of the building where EU Ministers of Agriculture will meet to decide about the future of our food. We’ll bring vegetables, pots, pans and cutlery with us. We’ll cook for the politicians, we’ll make noise, and we’ll deliver the demands of European citizens for a U-turn against harmful industrial agriculture.

Sign the open letter

Agricultural policy is a hotly contested issue because of the massive amounts of money involved. The proposed EU budget for the next seven years provides far too much money for industrial agriculture and far too little money for more sustainable farming and environmental protection. It’s time for governments to put the public interest before the interest of big business.

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The past year has shown us that we can prevail against the lobby of the big agricultural industry. Just last year, our community and our partners managed to cut the length of the license for the toxic pesticide glyphosate down to only five years, when EU politicians wanted 15!

Your signature shows that we care about food and farming: We want our daily bread to be healthy, we want our farmers to prosper and we want animals to be treated humanely.

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Sign the open letter

From kitchens and farmlands (and offices) all over Europe,

Mika (Bordeaux), Jörg (Lübeck), Virginia (Madrid), and the rest of us at WeMove.EU

PS: Whenever we eat something, we depend on the agricultural industry. Our food can only be as good as the agricultural model with which it’s produced. For us and for our environment, let’s grow our food in ways that reduce waste, reduce the amount of toxic chemicals, and promote a resilient and diverse food and farming system.

Sign the open letter now.

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References:
[1] https://www.politico.eu/article/central-europes-big-farms-cry-foul-over-eu-commission-funding-cuts-phil-hogan/
[2] https://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/sites/agriculture/files/cap-post-2013/graphs/graph1_en.pdf
[3] https://www.truthdig.com/articles/insects-are-vanishing-at-an-alarming-rate-new-study-finds/
[4] https://www.archyworldys.com/ministry-of-the-environment-100-million-against-insect-deaths/ and http://www.taz.de/!5542911/

 

Farm Animals, General News, Live Transport

EU: Live Animal Transport -Reg 1/2005 Has Failed The Animals From The Start.

We have personally been involved with live animal transport issues in Europe for 25+ years.

We know that Reg 1/2005 has failed the animals from the very start – and so you could say that the EU Commission has also been failing animals in transport from the very start.

To see a bit about our own past involvement with the live animal transport business. Please check out our info at  https://serbiananimalsvoice.com/about-us/  – scroll down quite  a way to see our own battles with a useless EU.

Here is a message from Silvia at Animals Angels.. who are based in Germany.

We want to thank Silvia for her info and the video which we have repeated below.  I am sure you will find it interesting.

It goes without saying that we give our full support to Angels and as individual welfare groups right across the EU, we work hard to expose the failures of the legislation 1/2005.

Please watch the video and see how the mighty EU Commission is failing anima;ls in transport.

Regards Mark.

 

 

Silvia says:

 

Dear Mark,

I hope this email finds you well.

 

On the 6th of September this year, we presented the premiere of a new film of Animals´ Angels in Brussels, at the EU Parliament. The video summarizes 10 years spent on the roads collecting data about the conditions of transported animals, after having interviewed some experts. The aim was to make the point of 10 years of application of Regulation EC 1/2005, analyzing what has been achieved and what remains to do. The final balance is very bitter. It is crystal clear that the original intention of the Council of EU has been betrayed. As you know, too many animals continue to travel crammed in trucks and ships over longer and longer distances. Animals´ Angels asked the EU Commission to take a stand and be faithful to its duties as “the guardian of EU laws”. A limit must be set to profit.  

To know more, please watch our recently published video “10 years of Regulation EC 1/2005 – Animals’ Angels field experience 2007-2017”: www.animals-angels.de/10-jahre

More than a million EU citizens already expressed their opposition to long animal transports already twice. Pressure of public opinion is a powerful means to demand EU institutions and governments a change. Please, help us spreading knowledge about animal transports.

Kindest regards,

Silvia

Farm Animals, General News, Stray Animals

Need Animal Help But Unsure Where To Go ? -Then Check Out WAN For A Start !

translator

 

World Animal Net (WAN) is a site which we use quite regularly – as it provides links to animal welfare associations based in just about every country of the globe.  We have found it very useful.

Here is the main link –  http://worldanimal.net/directory/search-wan-directory

 

As you can see; you can do a search in a couple of ways – we suggest that going directly to a country is the best way.  You can literally just select the country you wish to gets results for from the drop down, and then press the ‘search’ box.  You should then be given all the organisations for welfare groups in that country.

Just for example; today we have had several visits from Greece; so what better than to use this as an example.

So we simply go to the main link

http://worldanimal.net/directory/search-wan-directory

 

Select ‘Greece’ from the drop down list of nations.

Then hit the ‘Search’ button.

 

Then we are given a full listing of all the Greek organisations which can help with animal welfare.  The link to this is given here:

http://worldanimal.net/directory/search-wan-directory/results?country=84&fanda=0

 

So a good and very useful tool no matter where you are located in the world; if you need animal help.  You may find you get a lot more results than you expected – Great !

Have a play around with it and make sure you keep WAN as a source in your directory / contacts list.

Regards Mark

 

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