Time and again, Mediterranean policy platforms disproportionately center the Palestinian question, subtly redefining a gender and agrifood discussion into a geopolitical one.

A new regional forum on women in agrifood systems is being presented as a Mediterranean-wide platform for gender equality, resilience, and rural justice. Hosted under the institutional umbrellas of CIHEAM and the Union for the Mediterranean, the agenda appears technocratic and inclusive on paper: welcome remarks, keynote evidence on gender gaps, and a panel discussion on justice pathways in rural and agrifood contexts.

But look more closely. While the Mediterranean spans more than 20 diverse countries — from Spain and Italy to Morocco, Israel, Egypt, Türkiye, Greece, Tunisia and beyond — the panel composition again leans toward a familiar narrative axis. The inclusion of Dr. Zeina Jallad of the Palestine Land Studies Center signals that land and political grievance will likely dominate the “justice” framing.

Related: How the Mediterranean’s most hopeful UN green organizations fail at peace-building

Palestinian rural women face serious challenges, as many religious women are not allowed to work outside the home, as do women farmers in Lebanon’s collapsing economy, Morocco’s drought zones, southern Spain’s migrant labor farms, Israel’s border agriculture, and North African climate-vulnerable regions. Yet time and again, Mediterranean policy platforms disproportionately center the Palestinian question, subtly redefining a gender and agrifood discussion into a geopolitical one.

This pattern matters. When events branded as regional repeatedly foreground one national conflict lens, it risks distorting priorities and narrowing solutions. Women farmers across the Mediterranean face structural gender gaps in land rights, financing, market access, and climate adaptation. Those issues require cross-border cooperation, not selective amplification.

The upcoming International Year of the Woman Farmer 2026 offers an opportunity for genuine Mediterranean solidarity. But that requires balance. If the conversation becomes another stage for symbolic positioning rather than practical agrifood reform, the women most in need — from Andalusia to the Negev to the Atlas Mountains — will once again be sidelined.

EU and UN funding mechanisms must decide: is the UofM convening for rural transformation — or rehearsing familiar political scripts? I vote for the latter. This time they didn’t put a woman with a hijab on the cover. We know that in many traditional Muslim societies women face restrictions on working outside the home, never mind farming. A panel worth featuring would have been beekeeping for peace, an actual initiative that could help Palestinian women earn income from their rooftops. But the UofM would never dare mention it because the founder of the project is Israeli.

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Christ’s thorn jujube (Ziziphus spina-christi) also known as the sidr tree is a real, identifiable tree native to the Middle East, and it appears—directly or indirectly—in Islam, Judaism, and later Christian tradition. The connections between the three faiths are not theological agreements but overlapping uses, names, and symbolic associations rooted in the same landscape.

In Islam, the tree is known as the sidr. The Qur’an refers to Sidrat al-Muntaha, the Lote Tree of the Utmost Boundary, in Surah An-Najm (53:13–18). While the Qur’anic reference is cosmic rather than botanical, Islamic scholarship and popular tradition have long associated the earthly sidr tree (Ziziphus spina-christi) with this name. Separately, the sidr has practical religious use: its leaves are traditionally used for ritual washing, including funerary preparation, because of their cleansing properties. Islamic legal tradition also treats shade-giving trees such as the sidr as protected resources, discouraging their destruction because of their role in sustaining human and animal life in arid environments. In medieval medical literature the jujube appears fre-quently under various names, such as “sidar” or “tsal“, while the fruit is called “nabaq” or dum“. This is the confusing part, because it has so many different names. 

In Judaism, the same species is known in Hebrew as shizaf and in English, the jujube tree. The tree appears in rabbinic literature as a familiar fruit tree in the Land of Israel and surrounding regions. Its significance is legal and practical rather than mystical. The shizaf is discussed in the context of agricultural law, including restrictions against unnecessary destruction (bal tashchit, not wasting or destroying) and rules governing fruit trees, property boundaries, and communal benefit. Trees that provide food or shade, even if not commercially valuable, are afforded protection under Jewish law. Trees that provide fruit are forbidden from being cut down, and in Judaism there is even a holiday for the trees, called Tu B’shevat. The jujube therefore functions as part of Judaism’s broader land-based ethic rather than as a singular sacred symbol.

The Christian association is later and less textually grounded. The English name Christ’s thorn reflects a tradition that identifies the tree’s hooked thorns with the crown of thorns placed on Jesus Christ during the crucifixion. The New Testament does not name the plant species, and there is no definitive historical proof that Ziziphus spina-christi was used. However, the tree was common in Roman-era Judea, and its flexible, sharp thorns make the identification plausible enough to persist in Christian tradition and naming. This is one of the theories. Ever hike in the Judaean Mountains outside of Jerusalem, and dry thorny trees and bushes is about all you will find.

The clean line between the three traditions can exist: Islam names the tree as the sidr and elevates it symbolically and ritually; Judaism regulates it legally and ethically as part of a lived agricultural system. Mentioned in the Mishnah and Talmud, they are linked to the biblical atad and, historically. The sidr was also known as pilgrimage trees for women who were barren. Christianity retrospectively associates it with a central moment in the life of Jesus. All three traditions engage the same tree through different lenses—cosmic boundary, legal responsibility, and historical memory—without relying on the same texts or meanings. According to this article it is the only holy tree in Islam and the Druze also revere this tree for its spiritual importance.

The medicinal uses for Christ’s thorn, the sidr tree are vast. These are documented ethnobotanical use in Israel and the wider Middle East.

Medicinal Uses of Christ’s Thorn Jujube (Ziziphus spina-christi)

Source: Dafni, A., Levy, S., & Lev, E. (2005). The ethnobotany of Christ’s Thorn Jujube (Ziziphus spina-christi) in Israel. Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine, 1:8. https://doi.org/10.1186/1746-4269-1-8

What unites these traditions is that the jujube tree heals wounds, cools bodies, feeds communities, and thrives where water is scarce. It teaches patience, restraint, and coexistence with the land.

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Beloved, fortunate, sweet, and royal; an herb with a long and storied history in Asia and across the world. Called by many names, basil has featured in previous Green Prophet articles, so enjoy another serving, a brief history of basil. Humble yet vigorous, after Greek basilikon phyton or in English “royal plant”. Or basilikon okimon, which is the root of the Latin scientific name Ocimum basilicum.

Tulsi: Revered in India, Embalmed in Egypt

Yet the historical origins of basil are literally “matchless” among plants, the Hindu goddess Tulasi’s name means just that. She’s the namesake for the plant tulsi or as many know her, “holy basil”. Ancient Indians cultivated the peerless plant intensely, seeing her as the goddess Tulasi. Then she spread her roots and legends in every direction out of India. Rooted in romance and royalty, Tulasi is the beloved of the deity Vishnu who Vaishnavites see as the Supreme Being. Just like humanity, basil herself has a deeper origin as plant medicine in the mother continent of Africa.

Various African cultures traditionally use basil for both magic and medicine by various cultures. Herodotus the Greek historian documented her as a component of the embalming process for Egyptian mummies. Despite the proximity to Northern Africa, Greeks basil isn’t from the Egyptians. Note that off the coast of Tanzania in Eastern Africa, basil is mrehani on the island of Zanzibar. Mrehani is a Swahili word, Swahili being an Arabic-flavored Bantu language.

Pho Cups in Vietnam

Instead basil traveled east from India to Southeast Asia. This includes the common use of tulsi in Thai cuisine where it’s called krapow. Thailand also lends its brand to the strongly anise-flavored “Thai basil” called horapha. Horapha and related cultivars are used in Vietnam as well in the popular soup called pho. While tulsi is locally known as selasih in Indonesian, there is a lemon-flavored variety called kemangi. Both kemangi and selasih are common in Malaysian and Laotian cuisines as well.

Tokhm-e sharbati, a Cool Summer Drink

Traveling west through what’s now Pakistan, where sweet basil is niazboo in Urdu. Basil seeds are tukhmalanga soaked in water, creating a widely regionally-popular “cooling” beverage. Basil seeds as a beverage in Iran is tokhm-e sharbati, tokhm-e means “seeds” in Persian much like tukhmalanga in Urdu. Sharbati means a sweet drink like juice or syrup; this is a traditional and popular summer drink. Persia brought basil to West Asia, including the Levant.

In the Levant tulsi took on a new name from the Aramaic word ריחא or richa, meaning “smell” as in a scent. This became the basis for calling her rayḥān (Arabic), rayhān (Persian), and many other variants in Armenian, Azerbaijani, Georgian, Hebrew, Tajik, Turkish, and mrehani in Swahili as mentioned above.

You should not confuse rayhan with “Arabic basil” or habak, which is a mint plant from the mint genus Mentha. Both mints and basils are a part of Lamiaceae, somewhat confusingly called the mint family. Yet basils are from the genus Basilicum, the Latin for basilikon. Most of what we think of as mints are part of the Mentha genus. The wider Lamiaceae family contains many well-known herbs including rosemary, sage, oregano, hyssop/zaatar, thyme, lavender, perilla/shiso, catnip, bee balm, and many more.

From Moorish Romances to Pesto

From the Levant, rihan came to the beautiful volcanic island of Sicily where it became part of local magic, legend, and decor. Basil became basil there through Greek occupation as a calque the Greeks directly translated the Persian name meaning “kingly herb”.

Later on the Sicily, a custom rooted in old legends arose from the later Moorish occupation. Though often gruesome, the Moor’s Head is retold in many forms with both tragic and noble romances. In one such story a local girl falls in love with an invading Moor who turns out to have a family back home. She jealously beheads him, places his head in a decorative planter, then basil grows from it. In another story he’s still an invader but converts to the local religion and settles down to live happily ever after. There are other stories, some more tragic and others less so. Regardless of the story this is why you will find these oddly charming ceramic planters of a North African man and an Italian woman all over sunny Sicily.

And Pistare to Pistou

Emanuele Rossi concocted  pesto alla Genovese in 1852 CE, just over 170 years ago, the first common pesto to use basil as an ingredient. In Italian pesto simply means “paste”, a sauce properly made with a mortar and pestle to bring out the full flavor, based on the ancient Roman herb and cheese spread known as moretum and a more recent Ligurian garlic and vinegar innovation called aggiada. Likewise this is where French pistou originates; whether in French, Italian, or Sicilian we can see the common Latin root pisto/pistare that means “I pound”/”to pound”.

Two More Servings to Come

Delightfully, basil keeps growing vigorously wherever we plant her seeds, even in our heads! In each land the way basil spices up recipes varies as much as basil cultivars themselves.

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In another case of dubious Dubai, a UAE developer is making an ecological housing project and is advertising that they are uprooting ancient olive trees from the Mediterranean to plant in Dubai. We see what happens to trees planted in Dubai and then neglected. There is something deeply wrong with calling the uprooting of ancient olive trees “eco,” no matter how many studies are cited or how softly the word wellness is whispered into the sales brochure.

When Mediterranean olive trees—some said to be up to 2,500 years old—are lifted from their ancestral soil in Spain and Italy and shipped to Dubai to decorate a luxury development, this is not sustainability. It is ecological displacement dressed up as design. East tree is reported to have cost about $270,000 USD. So who is selling them?

Related: See what happens when millions of trees in Dubai are not watered

Water turned off in Abu Dhabi desert tree experiment (photo)

These trees are not ornaments but are living archives. Many took root around the time of Ancient Greece, long before real estate prospectuses and infinity pools. Olive trees anchor soil, sustain biodiversity, and hold cultural memory. They belong to landscapes shaped by centuries of climate, wind, microbes, and human care. Their value is not measured in dirhams.

Related: The value of an ancient olive tree in Israel

The idea that a tree costing AED 1 million somehow justifies its relocation is the logic of extraction, not regeneration.

Developments like MAG’s Keturah Reserve—rising in Mohammed Bin Rashid City—lean heavily on the language of biophilic design and mental wellbeing, and even point to a study on how trees are good for people. Yes, people thrive when connected to nature. But whose nature? And at what cost?

The developers say that they are going to bring the trees to their project Keturah Reserve, an apartment complex of the 533 low-rise apartments, 93 townhouses and 90 villas.

Flying centuries-old trees across continents via specialized cargo burns enormous fossil fuels. Replanting them in a desert climate—no matter how advanced the irrigation or “heritage preservation techniques”—places immense stress on organisms that evolved for Mediterranean seasons, soils, and rainfall patterns. And we’ve seen that the UAE is not capable of taking care of trees so survival rates are uncertain. Long-term ecological function is compromised. And the original landscapes are left poorer, stripped of irreplaceable elders.

“Every element enhances sustainability and harmony with the environment, so residents will thrive,” said Talal M. Al Gaddah, CEO and Founder of the Keturah luxury brand. “They bring history, calm, and a sense of permanence,” said Talal, who has conceived to build a natural gallery (Joni Mitchell called it a Tree Museum), where a forest of trees from around the world blend with art installations and sculptural dry gardens, just a short drive from Downtown Dubai.

This is not harmony with the environment but ecological laundering.

True biophilic design does not begin with removal. It begins with respect. If developers genuinely care about wellbeing, they would invest in native desert ecologies—ghaf trees, indigenous shrubs, living shade systems—species adapted to place, water scarcity, and heat. They would restore land rather than import symbolism.

Ancient olive trees should remain where they stand, rooted among the communities, farmers, birds, fungi, and histories that shaped them. They are not transferable assets. They are not centerpieces. They are elders.

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Sinkholes are rapidly appearing in Turkey’s central Anatolian farming region, particularly around Konya and Karapınar. These giant gaping holes in the ground in areas of farmland, known locally as obruk, are not random geological events. They are linked to prolonged drought, climate-driven heat stress, and heavy groundwater extraction for agriculture in one of the country’s most important breadbaskets. As rainfall declines and evaporation increases, natural aquifer recharge has slowed, while demand for irrigation water has surged. There are an estimated 700 new sink holes that have popped up this winter, according to Reuters.

Related: Explore Istanbul’s coolest neighborhood Balat

In Konya, large-scale farming relies heavily on groundwater wells. Farmers often respond to drought by pumping more water and overwatering crops, especially where irrigation remains inefficient or poorly regulated. When groundwater is withdrawn faster than it can be replenished, underground cavities lose pressure and stability. Over time, the land above can suddenly collapse, creating sinkholes that damage fields, roads, and infrastructure and threaten lives. Sinks holes have appeared in Iran, and also in Israel in the area of the Dead Sea. A giant sink hole collapsed an entire road in Bangkok, Thailand earlier this year.

Climate change has intensified drought through higher temperatures and shifting rainfall patterns, while decades of groundwater overuse for agriculture have compounded the damage. As in Turkey, farmers often drill deeper wells and irrigate more aggressively during dry years, accelerating aquifer depletion and land subsidence. Scientists warn that this cycle—drought followed by over-pumping—can permanently damage water systems and agricultural viability.

Related: learn more about Tunisia’s lagoons and hanging gardens for sustainable agriculture.

Across Turkey, the Dead Sea basin, and Iran, the lesson is consistent: groundwater is being treated as an endless emergency reserve. In reality, once aquifers are drained or destabilized, the land itself begins to fail. Sinkholes are not just geological curiosities; they are warning signs that climate change, drought, and overwatering are colliding with unsustainable farming practices.

Read more on resource overuse on Green Prophet:

Green Prophet: Turkey’s deadly sinkholes threaten agriculture and people

Green Prophet: Sinkholes and shrinking shores of the Dead Sea

Green Prophet: Land subsidence in Iran is a looming disaster

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Unconfirmed photos are circulating on the internet that a Gazan family has started to rebuild their home using mud bricks. And just a few days ago we reported on a Saudi Arabian designer and his plans for using mud bricks as a solution to the refugee crisis.

Mud bricks are made from clay, sand, water and a natural binder such as rice husk or straw. They are dried in the sun—no firing, no fuel required at all. Properly made, they meet compressive strength and heat-conductivity requirements, act as fire-resistant and sound-insulating walls, and keep indoor temperatures relatively stable in both summer and winter. This works as long as there is a protective roof and the bricks are maintained. People in the past used to know how to do this but concrete made us forget ancient wisdom. If you travel to places like Ethiopia, most rural people are living in mud houses. 

Related: ancient mud houses in the Muslim world

Globally, around 30 per cent of the world’s population still lives in earthen structures; the material is traditional across the Middle East, North Africa, India and much of the global South. The research community has moved well beyond nostalgia: recent studies on compressed earth blocks and fibre-reinforced mud bricks in places as varied as Australia, Togo and North Africa treat earth as a serious, testable low-carbon material, not as a second-best stopgap. Mud is flame-proof, readily available and as Hathan Fathy of the New Gourna Village argued can give people an honorable place to live.

In Gaza, of course, energy and shelter are fused problems. Even before the current war, the territory never had enough grid power. Over roughly a decade, rooftop solar spread rapidly: one satellite analysis found at least 655 rooftop solar systems in a single square mile of Gaza City, and by 2022 the strip was estimated to have more than 12,000 such systems.

Solar became a genuine lifeline, keeping water pumps, small clinics, fridges and phones running when diesel ran out. See the map below of rooftop solar, which according to this source made Gaza the highest user per capita of solar rooftop energy in the world.

Much of that infrastructure has since been damaged or destroyed since Hamas started the war with Israel, but the lesson is still there in plain sight: when you give people robust, decentralised tools—sun and soil—they will use them to hold their lives together. Satellite-based damage assessments now show that a large share of solar installations have been hit, which only increases the urgency of planning low-carbon, distributed systems for any serious reconstruction.

For a practical NGO funder, this suggests a very grounded agenda that is neither experimental for its own sake nor romantic about “traditional” methods.

Gaza will need: field-tested earthen construction, training and demonstration yards that support local engineers, masons and women’s groups to run short, paid training programs in mud-brick and compressed earth construction. Small demonstration houses, clinics or community centers can double as real assets and training labs. Centers can also teach solar cooking and basic engineering skills.

Solar + earth “micro-campuses”: pair thick, thermally massive earthen buildings with rooftop or courtyard solar systems and simple DC micro-grids with small plots for farming and permaculture. Muslim women in Israel and the PA can travel to Gaza to give workshops on beekeeping (see Bees for Peace).

While Gaza has always been densely populated, new models in earthen building and rooftop gardens can enliven the hope for the next generation.

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As world leaders and billionaires descend on Riyadh for this year’s Future Investment Initiative — better known as “Davos in the Desert” — we wonder where the planet fairs in all this political business talk. Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 plan has turned the kingdom into an unlikely global stage for innovation and investment, drawing over 20 heads of state, 50 ministers, and hundreds of financiers, tech executives, and policy shapers.

Some of the “diplomats” include Syria’s newest leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, also known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammad al-Julani, a Syrian politician, revolutionary, and former leader of Al Qaeda, that once had a bounty of $10 million USD on his head. We can see where this is going.

I am always hopeful, if not naive. Can this gathering of powerbrokers truly help save the planet, or is it another round of green-tinted self-congratulation? The event’s stated goal is to explore “new pathways for global prosperity.” In practice, that has meant spotlighting artificial intelligence, clean energy, healthtech, and new financial models.

The 2025 program dedicates half its panels to technology — a smart move given AI’s potential to optimize energy grids, improve climate modeling, and make sustainable materials scalable. Yet the conference’s foundation remains an oil-wealth economy seeking reinvention.

That contradiction — a fossil-fuel kingdom hosting a climate-focused summit — is what makes Davos in the Desert both fascinating and ridiculous.

Those attending read like a cross-section of global capital: sovereign wealth fund managers, CEOs of major banks, and tech visionaries courting Middle Eastern investment. Delegations from Africa, Asia, and Europe are also there, positioning their nations for partnership in a rapidly diversifying Gulf. Deals worth billions will likely be announced — infrastructure, AI, renewables, even biotech.

Yet the “green” voice remains muted. Few grassroots environmentalists or Indigenous leaders will sit beside the financiers. And while Saudi Arabia is investing heavily in solar, hydrogen, and reforestation, the absence of climate justice advocates, biodiversity scientists, and youth voices limits what the event can achieve beyond rhetoric.

Who Should Be Invited Next Year?

If Davos in the Desert wants to pivot from an elite networking forum to a genuine force for ecological regeneration, the guest list must evolve. Imagine Indigenous guardians of the Amazon, coral reef scientists, African solar entrepreneurs, and women leading rewilding projects in the Sahel sharing the stage with Wall Street executives. These are the people who embody solutions already working on the ground — the missing link between boardroom strategy and planetary repair. Or real, proven climate tech leaders who don’t mince words? Where do the voices of reason get lost when big money is on the table?

Saudi Arabia’s desert may seem an unlikely place to host a green renaissance, but it could become one as we showed with the investment in the company iyris, a greenhouse tech developed by foreigners from the UK and Turkey. Water scarcity, heat, and rapid urbanization make the region a living laboratory for resilience. If the FII community directs even a fraction of its capital toward desert greening, regenerative agriculture, and circular infrastructure, it could turn the Gulf into a model for climate adaptation. Oil is not going to last forever. Wells may keep getting “released” but the moment we fix fusion and have limitless energy, the Gulf Countries will become obsolete. Their fancy cities will look like a mirage.

To save the planet, investment summits like this must go beyond pledges. They must measure success in restored ecosystems, revived species, and resilient communities — not just in GDP growth. Until then, Davos in the Desert remains but a mirage: shimmering with possibility, but still waiting for its true oasis moment.

Read more on Green Prophet about Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, AI in climate innovation, and how deserts could lead the next green revolution.

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With the summer lull in Brussels drawing to an end, the EU is bracing for a showdown on the agri-food front. At stake is the Commission’s push to cap the amount of subsidies any single farmer can receive – a reform whose negotiations with the Council of the EU are slated to begin in the autumn. This bold move notably pits the EU executive against certain member-states and large agri-food producers. 

Indeed, while most European farmers would be spared by the rules proposed under the new Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) proposal, the continent’s farming giants stand to lose significant sums. Anticipating their resistance, Agriculture Commissioner Christophe Hansen has remained firm, reminding that “if we have to deal with the same amount of money and we want to better support young farmers, new farmers, small farmers,” this additional funding must come “from somewhere.”

Since taking office, Hansen has steered an encouraging pivot in EU agri-food policy, with the long-overdue CAP reform proposal aligned with a broader trend of farmer-friendly decisions. With EU producers facing rising international trade threats, staying on this course will be vital.

Setting CAP system straight 

Brussels’s past efforts to limit subsidy flows to the largest farms through “capping” have collapsed under pressure, and Hansen’s announcement of the reform in July has been met with similar hostility – hardly a surprise given it strikes Europe’s biggest landholders. Yet the proposal offers a much-needed correction to a subsidy system that has long disadvantaged small producers – the very farmers who underpin Europe’s food traditions and world-renowned GI exports.

In the 2023 financial year, just 20% of farms received 80% of direct CAP payments. Most of these are area-based subsidies, calculated per hectare regardless of actual production, allowing large landholders to draw enormous sums. To redress this imbalance, the Commission’s plan would set payments between €130 and €240 per hectare and cap overall income support at €100,000 per farmer, with progressive cuts above €20,000 – namely, a 25% reduction between €20,000 and €50,000, and a 50% reduction between €50,000 and €70,000.

Despite the uproar, the reality is that most farmers would escape unscathed. More than 90% of EU producers received less than €20,000 in decoupled payments in 2023, well below the level where cuts begin. What’s more, in every member state except France and Luxembourg, under a quarter of farms would even be affected. As Théo Paquet of the European Environmental Bureau has rightly posited, this reform should mark a first step toward “real redistribution” and the gradual phasing out of area-based payments detached from production results.

Moving past flawed Nutri-Score system 

Under Commissioner Hansen’s leadership, the CAP payment proposal marks the latest in a series of strong policy decisions that benefit the EU’s small local producers, who were utterly neglected by the last Commission’s ‘Farm to Fork’ policy agenda. One of F2F’s original pillars, the front-of-package (FOP) nutrition label is among the high-profile policies to get axed from the Commission’s agenda, with Hansen leaving it out of the new ‘Vision for Agriculture’ and work programme unveiled earlier this year.

The EU executive’s U-turn on the FOP label proposal has dealt a major blow to France’s Nutri-Score system, once considered the front-runner for EU-wide implementation before attracting an ever-growing coalition of member-states, farmers and researchers opposed to the label. For its critics, Nutri-Score epitomizes F2F’s shortcomings: a one-size-fits-all algorithm that penalises GI heritage products such as cheeses and cured meats, distorts consumer perception and threatens the livelihoods of the small producers Hansen aims to support.

Experts argue its absence will hardly be felt. For example, food law specialist Katia Merten-Lentz has observed that existing labelling rules already protect consumers, while Nutri-Score’s withdrawal would bring “relief to most businesses.” Scientific opinion has also shifted, with researchers spotlighting issues with the independence of pro-Nutri-Score studies, as well as the label’s limited effect on healthier diets and evidence of negative impacts on consumer choices – as confirmed by a new Medical University of Warsaw study published in August.

Despite mounting political opposition, growing scientific criticism and even the retreat of many former industrial supporters like Nestlé and Danone, certain member-states and supermarket chains continue to prop up Nutri-Score. The Commission must therefore remain vigilant to ensure these attempts do not undermine farmers, distort fair competition or compromise the integrity of the single market – particularly as other pressing threats loom on the horizon.

Shielding farmers from unfair trade 

Looking ahead, the EU’s upcoming trade deals with major partners will test the Commission’s resolve to pursue a genuinely pro-farmer agenda. As Brussels juggles political complexity, it must ensure trade ambitions don’t override the needs of European agriculture. Tariff negotiations, market access and safeguard mechanisms must be crafted with one boosting agri-food exports and the other firmly on protecting local farm livelihoods and food sovereignty.

Mercosur looms as a critical litmus test. Though the political deal was struck in December 2024, final ratification is expected by December, with both Council and Parliament approval pending, and national parliaments still in play. To secure France’s support, Brussels has introduced “circuit-breaker” safeguards for sensitive products like beef and poultry to prevent sudden import surges. Recently, EU politicians and farm leaders have warned that the Mercosur deal could severely undermine the competitiveness of domestic agriculture unless these protections endure.

Getting Mercosur right has become all the more important in light of Brussels’s apparent capitulation to Trump’s demands in the US-EU trade deal, with new details confirming enhanced market access for US agri-food exports in the EU without meaningful concessions gained to protect European farmers. If Brussels allows such asymmetries to persist, its credibility in defending EU farming may unravel under international pressure.

From looming trade agreements to mounting global competition and environmental pressures, the EU faces a pivotal moment. In the crucial months to come, staying the course will mean keeping small and local farmers at the heart of the agri-food system – not as an afterthought, but as the foundation of resilience, fairness, and food security. Europe’s strength tomorrow depends on protecting the diversity and vitality of its farms today.

Photo by Bernd ? Dittrich on Unsplash

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We tend to think of forests as quiet places—but beneath the soil, there’s a bustling network of chemical conversations taking place. It’s part of what some scientists call the “wood wide web”—a vast underground communication system that connects plants, fungi, and microbes in complex, symbiotic ways. It’s been shown that plants can speak. This new study might help us decode what they are saying.

Now, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) have uncovered new insights into this hidden language. By studying the molecular “words” that tree roots send into the soil, they’ve created one of the most detailed maps yet of underground plant communication—one that could revolutionize how we grow food and bioenergy crops.

As plants grow, their roots don’t just absorb nutrients—they release a rich array of organic chemicals into the soil, a process known as rhizodeposition. These secretions act like messages or invitations to microbes and fungi, encouraging cooperation, support, or sometimes defense.

“Plants form relationships with microbes like bacteria and fungi that help them survive tough conditions like drought or poor soil,” said Dr. Paul Abraham, co-lead of the study at ORNL. “But we’re only beginning to understand the full vocabulary of these underground interactions.”

To decode this chemical language, ORNL researchers focused on poplar trees, which are being studied as future bioenergy crops. They grew two types of poplar under different conditions—some with extra nutrients, some without—and collected samples from their roots at different growth stages.

Instead of looking for specific molecules they already knew, scientists used a technique called untargeted metabolomics, which allowed them to capture everything the plants were saying, so to speak.

“This approach lets us detect a much broader range of chemical diversity,” Abraham explained. “We’re finding unexpected or previously unrecognized compounds that may play critical roles in soil and plant systems.”

A molecular treasure trove

What they found was a treasure trove of compounds—some never identified before. Each plant produced different chemical profiles depending on its genes, environment, and age. These findings suggest that plants tailor their messages depending on who they’re talking to—whether they’re calling for help, warning of threats, or optimizing partnerships.

“This kind of insight helps us breed or engineer crops that are not only higher-yielding, but also more resistant to climate stress,” Abraham said.

Mushrooms, microbes, and machine learning?

Why does this matter? The underground networks built by fungi and bacteria are essential for healthy ecosystems—and for our ability to grow resilient crops in a changing climate. Fungi, in particular, act as “middlemen”, connecting roots across distances and helping move nutrients, water, and even chemical signals between plants.

To better understand this complex web, ORNL is now looking to AI and machine learning. “The chemical space we’re measuring is vast,” Abraham said. “Most of the molecules we detect can’t be confirmed using existing reference standards.”

In other words, there are too many molecules and not enough names. That’s where artificial intelligence will step in—to help identify unknown compounds and unlock new insights into how plants and microbes interact.

The ORNL team’s research, published in Plant, Cell & Environment, could eventually lead to crops that communicate more efficiently with beneficial fungi and bacteria—reducing the need for synthetic fertilizers and helping build a more sustainable agricultural system.

“Nature already has a smart underground network,” says Karin Kloosterman, editor of Green Prophet who founded an AI company Flux to listen to the language of plants: “Our job is to listen, decode it, and learn how to work with it.”

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What’s that sinking feeling?

In Iran, the very ground under your feet may drop away.

The issue here isn’t war. The issue is land subsidence, a human-caused phenomenon that’s been ignored and mismanaged In Iran for decades. Over-pumping of groundwater is causing Iranian land to subside; that is, to sink.

Land subsidence causes damage like water pipes bursting, roads collapsing, and sewer and gas lines breaking. Houses and buildings crack as their foundations weaken. Iran is one of the most earthquake-prone countries in the world. With this land deformation, even a minor quake could cause catastrophic disaster.

The GFZ German Research Center for Geosciences in Potsdam used satellite data to reveal the extent of the subsidence. A tool known as Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar, which spots even the most minute difference in ground deformation, revealed that land around Imam Khomeini International Airport (IKIA) was sinking at around 5 centimeters per year. This is considered a “moderate” rate of land subsidence. According to Iran’s National Cartographic Center, other areas are sinking at the rate of 31 cm per year.

Land sinks slowly, almost invisibly. But now the effects of land subsidence are plain to see; especially when a hole in the earth opens up and swallows a whole car under your eyes. At risk are cities, historical sites, and crucial structures like Iran’s airport. In Tehran, Isfahan and Rafsajan, land has dropped by over 12 inches (30 cm) per year. It can’t be ignored anymore.

90% of Iranian groundwater is used for farming. Much is wasted through inefficient management, such as unmonitored drilling of deep wells to make up for reduced rainfall. 14.5 cubic meters of groundwater are pumped every second, an unsustainable rate of use. One way to reduce waste and water theft is to implement water metering.

One might think that innovative farming methods such as Saudi Arabia’s proposed hydroponic greenhouses might penetrate Iranian thought.

As for the largest urban center, 70% of Tehran’s water needs are supplied by five nearby dams. Now, according to current state media reports, the reservoirs are only 13 percent full.

Better management of water resources is needed, such as projects to reduce waste and recycle water; but corruption and plain official indifference impede it.

Discussing water scarcity and air pollution in Tehran, the best that President Masoud Pezeshkian had to offer was a proposal to move Iran’s governmental hubs away.

“We have no choice but to move the country’s political and economic center closer to the sea,” he said.

In other words, no plan to manage water where the majority of people live: just moving government structures on to a better place.

Climate change and air pollution have roles in this sorry story too. Droughts plague Iran. In 2024, precipitation was 60% below average. Ice formed on mountains, which as snowmelt helps fill wells and aquifers, could help, except that it’s contaminated with pollution that rises from urban air.

Human population growth also strains water resources and distribution: the population of Tehran, for example, has exploded from 2 million to over 15 million in the last five decades. With a population of 90+ million, ignoring land subsidence and the reasons it happens could eventually lead to widespread disaster.

Photos via Tehran Times

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