Debates over the future shape of the EU’s common agricultural policy are becoming increasingly heated. Brussels wants producers to help deliver the green agenda but farmers are angry at all the hoops they have to jump through to secure subsidies in an already difficult economic climate.

Newly published research shows that reform is, however, urgently needed. It finds that 80% of CAP funds (some €46 billion) are spent on meat and dairy farming — in other words, agriculture’s most environmentally damaging sectors. This is obviously bad for emissions targets, but the researchers behind the study also show that EU subsidies are distorting prices for consumers, making animal products less expensive than they would be in a truly fair market — and therefore acting as a disincentive to adopting more sustainable diets.

In a separate but related development, Brussels has also announced plans to impose higher tariffs on Russian grain in a bid to protect the European market. The global trade is a delicately balanced system and Russia is still not fully excluded from it, despite the war in Ukraine. Here we look at why the EU is opting for tariffs instead of taking the potentially more politically powerful option of sanctions.

Humans also face the challenge of making decisions about how to protect land of quite a different kind — this time on the surface of the moon. Ever since astronauts first stepped onto the lunar surface, they’ve been leaving things behind. There are flags, sculptures and even human remains up there — terrestrial junk of all kinds. And with private companies adding to the pile, it’s only going to get worse.

Finally, it’s rare for local elections in any country to attract global attention but that’s what happened in Turkey over the weekend, where opposition candidates took key areas from the party of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. In this analysis of the results, we assess whether the tide has finally turned on the longstanding president.