The number of young people who want to work in agriculture is shrinking. Those who choose farming in Germany have to put up with high acquisition costs, complicated bureaucratic requirements and a modest income. 

Fish from inland rivers and lakes, whether wild or raised through freshwater aquaculture, have the potential to make significant contributions to healthy diets and sustainable food supplies in Europe. This is the main message of two important meetings of FAO’s European Inland Fisheries and Aquaculture Advisory Commission (EIFAAC), being held...

With great pleasure we release the IAHA Newsletter No. 6. We aimed to summarize the number of interesting ongoing research projects on organic livestock, financed by the European Union (under the Core Organic Plus programme) in this newsletter issue. I believe that these projects will increase and develop the need...

Some EU ministers raised concerns about external market disturbances in the meat sector coming from Ukraine and Brexit during a meeting on Monday (18 March) but Commissioner for Agriculture Phil Hogan pledged to fight fire with fire.

During the SusOrganic project it became obvious that hops and herb producers face several challenges in terms of drying. Especially uneven air distribution inside the dryer, the fan generated airflow and the boiler to heat the drying air have been identified as hotspots regarding product quality and environmental impact. In...

In this month’s bumper edition of Farms. Food. Future. presented by Brian Thomson we’ve been all over the UNFCCC COP25 Climate Conference in Madrid. We have news from farmers in South Africa, on biodiversity and agriculture in South America, we look at the outcome of the UN Climate Conference and we...

With our oceans and seas in a critical state of degradation from fleet overcapacity and overfishing, reintroducing subsidies that boost these activities must not be permitted, writes Ignacio Fesco Vanzini.

A new report published by a network of  European grassroots civil society organisations calls for a Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) and wider policy framework that explicitly favours small-scale sustainable producers and re-localisation of food supply-chains, write Chris Chancellor and Geneviève Savigny.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) most recent census data, white farmers operate 96.5 percent of the nation’s farms, on plots of land that average 424 acres each; on the remaining 3.5 percent of land, Hispanic or Latino and Black farmers maintain plots of land that are, on average, 374...

Despite remarkable developments in the field of food safety in recent decades, the global burden of foodborne diseases is still unacceptably high. An estimated 600 million – almost 1 in 10 people in the world – fall ill after eating contaminated food every year, and 420 000 of them die....

Positive deviant practices in gender relations and other livelihood aspects being practiced by women and men against the normative gender relations include women assuming the “role of men” in farm operations such as ploughing, harvesting and threshing; women speaking in public; couples sharing every decision and participating together in social...

L’édition annuelle 2019-2020 de Défis Sud propose un regard sur les agricultures familiales. Pour faire des agricultures familiales un moteur de la lutte contre la faim, il importe de connaître les filières agricoles, les chaînes de valeur alimentaires et les acteurs qui la structurent.

Small-scale family farms are the backbone of food production worldwide. Together, they are the main or sole providers of diverse and nutritious food for 70% of the world’s population. However, the livelihoods of these small-scale producers are increasingly being threatened by the development of our globalised industrial food system. The...

Experts in agricultural trade from 12 post-Soviet countries gather alongside state representatives beginning today in Chisinau for the fifth annual meeting of the Agricultural Trade Expert Network in Europe and Central Asia, or ATEN in short. Over the two-day meeting, participants will exchange information about agricultural trade policy developments in their...

Pastoralism is coping with many challenges, including its low economic viability, excessive bureaucracy, and low generational renewal, leading to its progressive disappearance across Europe. To economically compensate for the environmental services of pastoralism, including preventing forest fires through grazing, two complementary pathways were extensively discussed: on one hand, the need for...

Despite improvements in the control of organic farming, the European Court of Auditors (ECA) said more work is needed to prevent food fraud and ensure that organic standards are met, as traceability is causing continued issues for foodstuffs bearing the bio label.

As escolas da rede municipal do município de São Paulo já contam com 41% de alimentos orgânicos nas refeições oferecidas aos alunos: são mensalmente compradas 287 toneladas de arroz e legumes, 34.104 unidades de banana e 7,5 litros de suco de uva – todos cultivados de forma orgânica. O cardápio orgânico...

Ukraine has productive and healthy soil, called chernozem, that is rich in organic matter. However, leading Ukrainian soil scientists estimate that water erosion affects 13.4 million ha, including 10.6 million ha of arable land. Erosion directly impacts soil fertility and agricultural production, which can lead to significant economic losses of...

How can drones improve olive farms? Andalusian Operational Group (Spain) ‘I+D+i Precision Agriculture’ is trying to find an answer to this question. For the past year, the group has been studying how they can improve productivity and competitiveness in olive farming, while protecting natural areas.

Climate change has become an issue of national security and survival for many countries, as it further exacerbates the fragility of natural resources through the increased frequency and severity of extreme weather events. Climate change also affects food production and value chains and causes considerable damage and production losses in the...