| Aussie trade deal collapses After years of working towards a free trade deal between Australia and the EU, talks went ‘down under’ on Sunday (29 October) in Osaka after the two sides beefed over market access for agricultural products. This came as a ‘total shock’ for the EU, who had the bubbly on ice ready to celebrate the sealing of the deal, even flying out EU Agriculture Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski ready for celebratory photos. So what happened? The deal fell on issues related to access to market for agricultural goods, specifically beef and sheep meat – a sticky issue considering Australia is one of the world’s largest agrifood exporters. What’s next? Despite both sides saying they hope to continue negotiations, sources say these are unlikely to resume before the EU and Australian elections – in 2024 and 2025, respectively. Another game-changer could be a long-awaited cumulative impact assessment from the Commission’s DG AGRI. The study, originally pencilled for April 2023 but has been repeatedly pushed back, is set to evaluate the impact of trade deals on the EU agricultural sector. This is unlikely to facilitate discussions about Australia in the coming months, an EU official pointed out. NGTs, soil on ENVI menu Lawmakers in the EU parliament’s environment committee (ENVI) are set to discuss the Commission’s proposal to liberalise the bloc’s legislation on new genomic techniques (NGTs) in their upcoming meeting on Tuesday. The committee will discuss the draft position tabled by the leading MEP on the file, conservative Jessica Polfjärd, who proposed allowing certain gene-edited plants in organic farming. Also on the ENVI agenda is the EU Auditors’ Report on sustainable soil management, which concluded that EU tools for managing agricultural soils and manure sustainably “were not used sufficiently and that there remains considerable scope to improve soil health.” Mixed marks on climate adaptation The EU has made moves to adapt its agrifood system to climate change impacts but needs to step up its game, according to the OECD’s yearly agri policy monitoring report published this week, which focuses on climate adaptation this year. While the EU Strategy on Adaptation adopted in 2021 was a good step, according to the report, “there are no adaptation targets or requirements for Member States, which makes it difficult to monitor efforts.” The authors also call to integrate better wider EU policies, such as flood-risk management measures, with ones focused on agriculture and to widen the scope of action from policies that directly benefit farm businesses to more encompassing measures. The report comes amid discussions about how the CAP can adequately respond to the impact of increasingly frequent extreme weather events and whether the CAP’s agricultural reserve is the right instrument for this. | 