Only 11% of all farm holdings in the European Union are run by farmers under 40 – and persuading more young people to begin farming is a significant challenge. Faced with an ageing farming population, the EU is stepping up its efforts to encourage young people into farming. Young farmers are...

Agroforestry integrates woody vegetation with crop and/or livestock production to benefit from the ecological and economic interactions. The objective of this paper is to systematically determine the spatial distribution of agroforestry in the EU, and changes in the areas and types of agroforestry from 2009 to 2018. This was achieved...

CropLife Europe is an organisation which represents the crop protection industry, working together to find and promote sustainable, innovative, science-based crop protection solutions. Their annual conference took place on 7-8 March 2023. Presentations can be downloaded here .

A call for applications for the second edition of the EU Organic Awards is now open (until 14 May 2023). Organic agri-food systems remain a keen interest for the EU CAP Network and we have been contributing to the transition of organic production in a range of ways, including through our Thematic...

Small-scale family farmers are the unsung heroes of the global food system. They produce over a third of the world’s food and are key to climate adaptation, yet new analysis reveals they receive just 0.3% of international climate finance. Climate change is hitting harvests and driving up food prices across the...

Dear readers, The Organic Farm Knowledge platform (organic-farmknowledge.org) provides access to a wide range of tools and resources about organic farming that can help improve production. We are pleased to share this month’s newsletter with you. We look forward to sharing more news with you in November.

FOODRUS is working to tackle the food waste and losses by creating resilient food systems across nine European regions. To achieve this, the project will test 23 circular solutions through diverse forms of collaborative innovation, including: technological (blockchain solutions to manage food losses and waste), social (educational materials and citizen science...

The CAP Implementation Contact Point’s Thematic Group (TG) focussed on youth employment in rural Europe is continuing to network and share experiences and new ideas to help young people live and work in the countryside. The CAP Implementation Contact Point’s Thematic Group (TG) on rural youth employment is continuing to network...

On 30 November and 1 December 2022, the Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development of the European Commission (DG AGRI) and the Support Facility for Innovation and Knowledge exchange including EIP-AGRI held the one-and-a-half-day EU CAP Network workshop ‘Young entrepreneurs – Engines of innovation in rural areas. With a total of...

Greenovate! Europe is a not-for-profit network of organisations dedicated to sustainable innovation. Together we develop sustainability projects and provide innovation support to researchers, companies and policy-makers.

Pre-crop values are used to indicate the benefits of a previous crop for a subsequent crop in crop sequencing. A better understanding and research on pre-crop values has the potential to facilitate the diversification of crop production. Despite the various benefits of diversification, the limited knowledge and incentives concerning the...

HAMK Mustiala campus farm is an organic dairy experimental farm in Finland which offers a working environment for research, education and innovation projects. Research institutes, advisory services and agricultural companies cooperate with Mustiala on-site carrying out tests and research activities, many of which are related to animal welfare. 

There are about 2.5 billion people in the world, on 500 million farms, involved with smallholder family agriculture and food production. Their creative capacity to farm productively and sustainably with nature, instead of against it, is perhaps the most powerful force that can be unleashed to overcome the interlinking challenges...

Relatively a few studies assess the impact of climate change (CC) policies on effective farmers’ agronomic practices and associated agro-technical performance. This study aimed at characterizing how CC policies can help farmers to combine CC with other environmental issues to support the design of more effective policies at the farm...

Project Objectives GOAL Demonstrate how landscape-scale cooperation can improve conservation management of Habitats Directive grassland habitats of farmland N2000 sites in Transylvania, and improve effectiveness of agri-environment measures, halting the loss of species and habitats of European importance.   OBJECTIVES Develop habitat, species, land use maps for Angofa and Viscri valleys including landscape features. Develop local management plans in...

Synergies between rural innovation engines in the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) are possible, as shown by the success of LEADER Local Action Group (LAG) cooperation with a European Innovation Partnership Operational Group (EIP OG) focused on improving the competitiveness of cherries from mountain areas in Spain. Around 4 000 small farms...

The Family Farming Knowledge Platform (FFKP) Monthly Digest showcases the latest contents uploaded in the FFKP to provide its readers with relevant and up-to-date information on family farming main themes such as agroecology, small-scale fisheries, pastoralism, indigenous people, and more.

The 2021 ongoing evaluation report assesses the Aragon Rural Development Programme (RDP) 2014-2022, aiming to advance the analysis of RDP effects for the ex-post evaluation, due in 2026. Key objectives of the evaluation included verifying data availability for socio-economic impact indicators, updating context indicators and reviewing recommendations from the previous evaluation,...

This evaluation examines the effects of compensatory payments for organic production in Sweden on rural development, the environment and climate.  This evaluation from Sweden evaluated the compensation for organic production in the country’s Rural Development Programme and revealed a positive impact on farmers' profitability, competitiveness, local economies and innovation. It also...

✔Rural Realities | Testing Grounds for Wellbeing ✔Are We Ready to Amend the CAP SP to Fit For 55? ✔The Michael Dower Award for European Rural Resilience And much, much more in our Weekly Briefing