We’re back from Davos! In this week’s episode: 🌱 What’s the future of the EU Farm to Fork strategy? 🎵 Tick-tock for TikTok (w/ Zoltán Kész) 🌐 The importance of browsers (w/ Kush Amlani) Zoltan quoted on TikTok: https://dailynewshungary.com/will-tiktok-be-banned-in-the-eu-and-hungary/ Mozilla research on browser competition: https://research.mozilla.org/browser-competition/ February 2, 2023 Follow ConsEUmer wherever you get your podcasts: […]
The farming sector faces national security threats
The Biden administration has released an updated security memorandum, which outlines the threats to the American agricultural system, as well as ways to address them. “To achieve this, the Federal Government will identify and assess threats, vulnerabilities, and impacts from these high-consequence and catastrophic incidents – including but not limited to those presented by CBRN […]
Compared to Europe, the American farm system is more efficient and sustainable
One of the more notable misconceptions of many Americans is that people in the United States are worse off than their European counterparts. If we were to only look at income, Americans are wealthier than Europeans on multiple data points: the U.S. outperforms GDP per capita for most of the European Union. The American middle class also […]
Feeding 8 Billion People Has Never Been Easier
The United Nations recently confirmed that the world population has officially reached 8 billion. However, what should be a celebration of humanity’s ability to innovate and populate has many analysts worried about the future: How is the planet supposed to lodge, power and feed this large number of people? According to a recent Politico headline, for one, climate […]
Biden’s Doublespeak Doesn’t Aid Farmers
According to the Biden administration, American agriculture faces unique national security threats, including the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, increased ransomware attacks, climate change, and the Avian influenza outbreak. This comes at a time when the White House is adamant about its plans for “climate-smart commodities and rural projects,” through which it is investing $2.8 billion in 70 […]
Europe’s Food Protectionism Is Taking on a New Dimension
The war in Ukraine has affected Europe’s agricultural sector and slowed the ambitions of the European Union to enact sweeping new farming rules. Reforms in Brussels are modeled on the so-called Farm-to-Fork strategy, a roadmap through which the union wants to slash pesticide use, reduce farmland and push organic agriculture well beyond its current market […]
Featured on the Central European Affairs Podcast
I was interviewed on the Central European Affairs Podcast by Zoltán Kész. A link to a transcripted version can be found here.
Dutch farmer protests give cautionary tale to the U.S.
Over the summer, farmers in the Netherlands vehemently protested against the government’s new environmental rules. Over multiple weeks, thousands of farmers burned hay bales and blocked roads and food distribution centers in an effort to draw attention to new EU rules that would paralyze the sector. The government in The Hague attempts to follow EU […]
The trouble with King Charles’ unorthodox views on modern farming
During his long tenure as the successor to the throne, then-Prince Charles was a defender of the environment. The Prince of Wales website underlines the use of “his unique position to champion action for a sustainable future.”He testifies to having made changes in his own lifestyle that made him more eco-friendly: running his Aston Martin luxury car on surplus […]
In the fight between rodents and humans, environmentalists choose the rats
Imagine the scene in 14th-century Europe, as the continent was suffering under the bubonic plague, if a group of aristocrats had taken the side of the rats. What seems like a blueprint for a Monty Python sketch, or a skit on SNL during the days it dared to take risks, is not far from the world we […]