Climate change is a major challenge in Europe as well as globally with potential implications for issues including food security and environmental protection. As reflected in the priorities for the current period, EU rural development policy must play its part in contributing solutions. Rural areas and activities can be surprisingly...

Mapping the Local and Solidarity-based Partnerships in the Mediterranean Basin is an extremely challenging task: it means dealing with a new and rapidly growing field. To date, to the best of our knowledge, there is has been no study that deals specifically with local food systems in the area as...

La politique agricole commune (PAC) a été mise en place en 1962. Il s'agit d'une politique commune à tous les États membres de l’Union européenne (UE), gérée et financée grâce aux ressources du budget annuel de l’UE, dont la PAC représente près de 40%. Ses principaux objectifs sont d'améliorer la...

Efforts to rapidly increase on-farm biodiversity are a matter of urgency in an era of climate change. To do so, farmers need better access to the genetic material of research stations and gene banks. Collaboration with scientists who are willing and able to work together with family farmers is crucial....

Improving food safety and competitiveness in Georgia’s commercial dairy sector was the focus of the country's first National Dairy Congress, held this week in the capital Tbilisi. The event, organized by FAO and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, drew around 150 participants, including commercial dairy farmers, processors, input and...

In our last newsletter we announced plans by Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA), IFOAM – Organics International, Ecological Organic Agriculture Initiative for Africa (EOA-I), and AfroNet to hold a conference on the changing food systems in Africa. The conference comes at a time when African states are beginning...

The experiments in farming described in this book represent new social forms of agriculture which have arisen in recent years while traditional family farms have declined and industrial agriculture has increased. These new famers involve many local families directly in the decisions and labour which produce the vegetables, fruits, milk,...

Ensuring adequate, nutritious and safe food for a growing population is a complex task – one where food, livelihoods and management of natural resources can no longer be handled separately. Bearing in mind specific regional challenges, the countries of Europe and Central Asia appear determined to get it right. Gathered here...

The Haller Foundation, a Kenya based sustainable agriculture best practice organisation is famous for its resource efficient, holistic approach to sanitation, agriculture and livelihoods development in rural communities. They have now broadened their scope to include urban poor and have been adapting state of the art sustainability to the urban...

At its 58th session held in Mostar on 16 June  2016, the Government of Federation of BiH considered the Rural Development Program of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina for the period 2016-2020.

Les populations de Guélakh-Peulh sont exposées aux variabilités climatiques comme la plupart des milieux ruraux du Sahel et du Sénégal en particulier. Ce travail analyse l’évolution des paramètres climatologiques et identifie les stratégies d’adaptation de l’élevage des bovins aux variabilités climatiques dans le village de Guélakh-Peulh. L’étude du climat est...

Conservation Agriculture has the potential to enhance soil fertility and reduce erosion across 260,000 hectares (ha) of fragile and degraded cereal land in Tunisia, according to a joint study by the country’s National Institute of Agronomic Research (INRAT) and ICARDA. 

This poster describes various innovative sustainable practices used in agroecology. It provides brief information on pollination, natural pest control, crop-livestock integration, soil biodiversity, water management, forest management, nitrogen fixing and other ecological, economic and social principles and techniques of agroecology.

Nearly 61% of EU young farmers consider the availability of land for purchase and 57% the availability of land for rent as the most difficult challenges they face, often due to issues such as land ownership laws, inheritance rules and land prices, according to a new external report published by...

En esta edición la revista trata del manejo agroecológico de plagas: Una alternativa viable para una agricultura más sustentable Manejo agroecológico de gusano cogollero Extractos vegetales como alternativas para el manejo fitosanitario

Rural development and agriculture are well placed to make a central contribution to the jobs growth and investment priority at the heart of the European Commission’s economic agenda.

Increasingly, seeds are the domain of professional breeders, agribusiness and policy makers. They decide what makes for a good variety and they develop legislation that excludes other varieties. Despite this, family farmer organisations and social movements in Paraíba, Brazil, have managed to strengthen decentralised farmerdriven seed selection and distribution systems...

This case study is part of the work conducted by the Agroecological Learning Alliance in South East Asia (ALiSEA), in order to showcase outstanding agroecological initiatives at grass root level across the Mekong region (Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam). ALiSEA is an innovative regional initiative supported by Gret, aiming at...

This report is intended to examine the current and changing dynamics of succession planning in Australian farming families and the potential impact these changes will have on regional communities and the broader economy. Our survey enabled a close analysis of generational change regarding preferences and attitudes towards succession planning. Results...

Agroecology is considered jointly as a science, a practice and a social movement . It encompasses the whole food system from the soil to the organization of human societies. It is value-laden and based on core principles. As a science, it gives priority to action research, holistic and participatory approaches, and transdisciplinarity that...