European Union

The European Union announced higher tariffs on $4 billion worth of U.S. products, including agricultural exports, industrial goods, and aircraft on Monday in an escalating dispute over government support of the airplane industry on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. The Trump administration …

In the United States, Covid-19 has been sweeping through meatpacking plants, infecting more than 24,000 workers and killing at least 92 of them. Those figures are more than nine-times larger than at meat plants in Europe, though the U.S. industry has only a third more workers.  Bridget Huber explains how Europe largely avoided the crisis sweeping the U.S. industry in FERN's latest story. (No paywall)

Leaders of EU countries agreed to open trade talks with the United States on Monday with the goal of eliminating tariffs on industrial goods but said that agricultural products would not be part of the negotiations.

Lactalis, the biggest dairy company in France, has recalled over 7,000 tons of baby formula and powdered milk products across 80 countries, reports the New York Times. The recalls, which were implemented over the course of several weeks, amounted to one of the biggest such recalls in history. At least 38 children were sickened by salmonella found in the recalled products.

Crops created by gene editing techniques such as CRISPR “might not need to be regulated by the strict European Union rules that govern genetically modified organisms,” said Nature, citing a formal opinion from an advocate general at the European Court of Justice.

With protesters outside the EU headquarters in Brussels, EU member nations postponed a vote on extending the license to use the weedkiller glyphosate in Europe. Approval for the herbicide expires at the end of December and the next opportunity for an EU decision will likely be at a Nov. 6 meeting, said Associated Press.

Monsanto has been banned from attending European parliament proceedings after the corporation refused to appear for a parliamentary hearing, slated for October 11, to investigate regulatory interference. Monsanto is accused of influencing studies on the safety of the glyphosate, the primary ingredient in the company’s weedkiller Roundup.

Bayer’s $57 billion purchase of Monsanto, the latest in a wave of consolidation among seed and ag-chemical companies, faces an in-depth investigation by EU regulators over concerns the merger would result in higher prices and reduced competition in the seed, pesticide, and plant trait sector, said the Wall Street Journal.

The U.S. stood alone at the G20 meeting in Hamburg, Germany, as all the other countries, including China and the European Union, called on the Trump administration to address climate change.

Countries must start figuring out how much food they waste if they’re going to meet the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goal of halving global food waste and lowering food loss by 2030, says a report out by Champions 12.3, a coalition of government, business, and research organizations.

The world's largest pork producer and consumer, China, has soared into the lead as the world's largest pork importer, accounting for one-fourth of the world market. China will import 2.4 million tons of pork this year, a million tons more than Japan, the previous leader, says a semiannual USDA report.

Earlier this year, when France voted to not extend glyphosate’s EU license for 18 months, the decision was personal for President François Hollande, says Politico EU. Hollande essentially had to choose between siding with his best friend in government, Agriculture Minister Stéphane Le Foll, and the mother of his four children, Energy and Environment Minister Ségolène Royal.

FNSEA, the French national farming union, estimates the wheat crop in Europe’s largest agricultural producer will total 30 million tonnes this year, down 26 percent from 2016 due to a rainy and cloudy weather that kept grains from filling.

Two days before the EU is set to vote on whether to relicense the pesticide glyphosate, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Health Organization have decided that the chemical is “unlikely to pose a carcinogenic risk to humans from exposure through the diet,” reports The Guardian.