scholarly journals Exploring economic and legal barriers to commercial aquaponics in the EU through the lens of the UK and policy proposals to address them

Author(s):  
Christopher Cammies ◽  
David Mytton ◽  
Rosemary Crichton

AbstractAquaponics is a food production system which connects recirculating aquaculture (fish) to hydroponics (plants) systems. Although aquaponics has the potential to improve soil conditions by reducing erosion and nutrient loss and has been shown to reduce food production related carbon emissions by up to 73%, few commercial aquaponics projects in the EU and UK have been successful. Key barriers to commercial success are insufficient initial investment, an uncertain and complex regulatory environment, and the lack of projects operating on a large scale able to demonstrate profitability. In this paper, we use the UK as a case study to discuss the legal and economic barriers to the success of commercial aquaponics in the EU. We also propose three policies: (1) making aquaponics eligible for the new system of Environmental Land Management grants; (2) making aquaponics eligible for organic certification; and (3) clarifying and streamlining the aquaponics licence application process. The UK’s departure from the EU presents a unique opportunity to review agricultural regulations and subsidies, which in turn could provide evidence that similar reforms are needed in the EU.

2021 ◽  
Vol 69 (4) ◽  
pp. 345-350
Author(s):  
Divas Karimanzira ◽  
Thomas Rauschenbach

Abstract Population rise, climate change, soil degradation, water scarcity, and food security require efficient and sustainable food production. Aquaponics is a highly efficient way of farming and is becoming increasingly popular. However, large scale aquaponics still lack stability, standardization and proof of economical profitability. The EU-INAPRO project helps to overcome these limitations by introducing digitization, enhanced technology, and developing standardized modular scalable solutions and demonstrating the viability of large aquaponics. INAPRO is based on an innovation a double water recirculation system (DRAPS), one for fish, and the other one for crops. In DRAPS, optimum conditions can be set up individually for fish and crops to increase productivity of both. Moreover, the integration of digital technologies and data management in the aquaculture production and processing systems will enable full traceability and transparency in the processes, increasing consumers’ trust in aquaculture products. In this paper, the innovations and the digitization approach will be introduced and explained and the key benefits of the system will be emphasized.


2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 72-82
Author(s):  
Sophia Price

Brexit is likely to herald fundamental changes in the operation, scope and practice of EU development policy, due to the UK’s key role in leading and defining the geographical and sectoral remit of policy, and through its provision of large-scale funding. Through a focus on the EU’s relations with the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States, this article explores these potential impacts. It highlights the importance of the timing of Brexit in relation to the contemporaneous renegotiation of EU–ACP relations and the EU’s Multiannual Financial Framework and argues that the focus on static impacts of Brexit, in terms of removing the UK from the ‘EU equation’, overlooks the broader dynamics of political economy in which it is situated. Through the analysis of the anticipatory adjustments and discursive dynamics in EU development policy that articulate the pursuit of material interests, the article helps understand both the dynamics of Brexit and the broader transformations in which it is located.


2019 ◽  

The exit of the United Kingdom from the EU represents the first large-scale reversal of European integration. It will, in particular, have an appreciable impact on the trade relations with the European continent. This edited volume brings together contributions from leading economists and legal scholars that raise crucial questions and challenges with respect to the Brexit negotiations. In doing so, the contributions do not only look at the withdrawal agreement but, beyond that, at the future trade relations between the UK and the EU after the entry into force of a possible withdrawal agreement. The authors are driven by the conviction that the future relationship between EU and UK shall allow the utmost possible degree of economic freedoms in the benefit of both sides, taking into account political restraints deriving from UK to meet the main objectives of the Brexit campaign and addressing the special circumstance of the Northern Irish peace process, and from the EU, preventing the emergence of incentives to destabilise the European integration. Against this background, the contributions develop realistic solutions which can serve as a reliable model for the negotiation process.


2013 ◽  
Vol 53 (11) ◽  
pp. 1143
Author(s):  
Ian J. Lean

Considerable progress has been made in reducing starvation during the past century. This was achieved through increased use of arable land and adoption of new technologies. Future increases in food production will depend to a greater extent than in the past on the adoption of new technologies and must be even more rapidly achieved than in the past to meet the increase in demand for food. Intensive industries such as the poultry industry are under pressure from those engaged with a naturalistic fallacy. Technologies such as antibiotics for chickens or hormonal growth promotants (HGPs) for beef cattle that are safe for people, reduce environmental impacts of production, increase profits for producers, and improve animal well-being will be needed to achieve these increases in food production. The precedent set in the EU in banning HGPs can be understood as a response to the illegal abuse of diethylstilboestrol in the EU and as a non-tariff trade barrier to reduce the importation of beef from more efficient producers. The banning of antibiotics in the EU reflects the unwise application of a ‘precautionary principle’ through which risks were not soundly assessed. However, the unilateral ban established by Coles Supermarkets Pty Ltd on HGPs in Australia represents a more dangerous development, in which marketing ploys have been accorded a higher value than the care of animals, the environment, or the profit made by producers. Decisions such as these have reduced the viability of animal production in the UK and pose a threat to sustainable agricultural production in Australia.


2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 331-343 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alessio D'Angelo ◽  
Eleonore Kofman

Growing concerns and hostility towards continuing large-scale flows of immigrants following the two rounds of EU enlargement and high levels of net migration played a major part in the Brexit referendum result for the UK to leave the EU. So too had welfare chauvinism, or the belief that welfare benefits should be restricted to citizens, come to the fore in negative attitudes to EU immigration, reflecting a rejection of EU migrants as fellow citizens. As the article shows, proposals as of summer 2017 for the status of current EU citizens in the UK indicate a desire by the UK government to incorporate current EU citizens within the far more restrictive British immigration rules, thereby curtailing some of their basic free movement rights, especially in relation to future family members. Leaked proposals for future EU citizens post-Brexit are to bring them within a single overall immigration system covering EU and non-EU migrants and applying differential rights of residence to skilled and less skilled, thereby stratifying EU migrants according to educational level and labour market sector. This would represent a return to the status of mobile workers with conditional rights of residence and social entitlements similar to those faced by non-EU migrants.


Author(s):  
О. Кravchuk ◽  
V. Symonenkov ◽  
I. Symonenkova ◽  
O. Hryhorev

Today, more than forty countries of the world are engaged in the development of military-purpose robots. A number of unique mobile robots with a wide range of capabilities are already being used by combat and intelligence units of the Armed forces of the developed world countries to conduct battlefield intelligence and support tactical groups. At present, the issue of using the latest information technology in the field of military robotics is thoroughly investigated, and the creation of highly effective information management systems in the land-mobile robotic complexes has acquired a new phase associated with the use of distributed information and sensory systems and consists in the transition from application of separate sensors and devices to the construction of modular information subsystems, which provide the availability of various data sources and complex methods of information processing. The purpose of the article is to investigate the ways to increase the autonomy of the land-mobile robotic complexes using in a non-deterministic conditions of modern combat. Relevance of researches is connected with the necessity of creation of highly effective information and control systems in the perspective robotic means for the needs of Land Forces of Ukraine. The development of the Armed Forces of Ukraine management system based on the criteria adopted by the EU and NATO member states is one of the main directions of increasing the effectiveness of the use of forces (forces), which involves achieving the principles and standards necessary for Ukraine to become a member of the EU and NATO. The inherent features of achieving these criteria will be the transition to a reduction of tasks of the combined-arms units and the large-scale use of high-precision weapons and land remote-controlled robotic devices. According to the views of the leading specialists in the field of robotics, the automation of information subsystems and components of the land-mobile robotic complexes can increase safety, reliability, error-tolerance and the effectiveness of the use of robotic means by standardizing the necessary actions with minimal human intervention, that is, a significant increase in the autonomy of the land-mobile robotic complexes for the needs of Land Forces of Ukraine.


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