ACP:
16 July: Sub-Committee on Development Finance Cooperation
17 July: Committee of Ambassadors
18 July: Working Group on the preparation of the 8th ACP Summit
Council of the European Union:
14 July: Agriculture and Fisheries Council (AGRIFISH)
17 July: Economic and Financial Affairs Council (Ecofin)
European Parliament:
14 – 18 July: Plenary Session (Strasbourg)
17 July: Vote on the next European Commission President
Preliminary anti-dumping duties on European chicken are improving poultry sector prospects and margins. Shares in production companies have lifted as a result of the duties, which South African Poultry CEO Kevin Lovell said were about ‘levelling the playing fields’. Falling maize is also benefiting the sector which has reported shares in Country Bird, Astral and Sovereign all over 40 per cent higher, reports Business Day Live. Duties ranging from 22 to 73 per cent were introduced on imports of German, Dutch and UK frozen bone-in chicken.
At a recent workshop for the Project Strengthening the resilience of Pacific agricultural systems to climate change through enhancing access to and use of diversity, held at the Vanuatu Agricultural Research and Training Centre (V.A.R.T.C.) on Espirito Santo, participants established the first Pacific breeders’ network. The network is the way forward to address the lack of breeders in the Pacific to sustain breeding research, and to strengthen the capacity of countries to carry out breeding.As a long-term solution to address current challenges to food security, it is vital to breed a generation of resilient varieties of food crops that are rich in nutrients and tolerant to climate change and emerging pests and diseases.
Caribbean Community (Caricom) countries say they are still in the global economic crisis mode and appealed to Britain to help provide "concrete measures" that would improve the socio-economic development of the population in the region. Guyana's Foreign Affairs Minister Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, addressing the Eighth United Kingdom-Caribbean Forum that ended here yesterday, said that it provides an excellent opportunity for the Caribbean and the UK to engage in productive discussions towards reaching agreement on concrete measures that will contribute to improving the quality of life of our citizens.
Private sector organisations in the Pacific are concerned with the decision to close down the Centre for Development Enterprises (CDE) offices in the Africa, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries, including its Pacific region office based in Suva, Fiji. The decision was relayed to them at the second Pacific –EU Business Forum underway in Port Vila, Vanuatu. Vanuatu’s Ambassador to the European Union, Roy Mickey Joy said despite attempts by Pacific Ambassadors in Brussels to maintain the status quo, the European Union decided otherwise.CDE regional offices – one in Fiji for the Pacific region, one in the Caribbean and four offices in Africa are now in a transition period before it closes in two years.