Faced with changes in society, climate and geopolitics, we are all vulnerable. This vulnerability calls for ongoing adaptation, questioning of how we work and how we live. For rural territories, quality of life is a lever for development. Rural society is imagining new ways of functioning, in which every person has a place, and their needs and wants are respected.

“Nos Campagnes en Résilience” (now the Rural Resilience project) looked at agroecological transition initiatives in France through a socio-ecological lens. We chose to research cooperative farms known as GAECs (Groupement Agricole d’Exploitation en Commun). This legal structure is interesting for several reasons: GAECs are rooted in practices (both conventional and non-conventional agriculture), and played a social role in agricultural and rural France in the 1980s and 1990s by working for gender equality in the running of a farm.

Through this entry point, we sought to find out how GAEC cooperatives were now contributing to other social and ecological issues. Rural society is changing in terms of its relationship with work, living environments and quality of life. Official experiments have made some progress – such as the ‘Youth Guarantee’ (Garantie Jeunes) deployed over several years in experimental stages. Yet individual ultra-local initiatives remain the best way to find and test solutions.