LIFE members, staff and scientists explain current challenges and future opportunities to give the right to fish Bluefin Tuna back to small-scale fishing communities. Small-scale fishers play a vital role for coastal communities. For centuries they fished for Bluefin tuna, which provided a significant seasonal source of income for them. Since...

Future policies towards livestock farming and trade in the UK and EU should support a shift to healthy sustainable diets and develop more coherent approaches to environmental objectives such as climate change, protecting nature and high animal welfare.

Everybody needs food – and that means that everybody needs farmers. Farming was one of humanity's first professions, an organised way to meet the fundamental needs of each and every person on the planet. It's this fundamental need that means that farming is just as important today as it was...

For years, the local fishermen have been enduring the effects of the financial crisis. The region’s banking system is limited to a few operators with strict constraints for attributing loans. Fishermen cannot necessarily provide a typical guarantee, making it difficult for them to obtain loans. Because fishermen do not always...

The EU has 500 million consumers and they all need a reliable supply of healthy and nutritious food at an affordable price. The economic environment is set to remain uncertain and unpredictable. Moreover, there are many current and future challenges including global competition, economic and financial crises, climate change and...

Access to agricultural land has become a major issue throughout Europe - we are witnessing loss of land, land degradation, land concentration, land price increases and speculation. Yet the growing demand for local, fair and organic food cannot be met without the land and the committed farmers. Community Supported Agriculture has...

A dairy plant in Slovenia created a local mountain supply chain with high added value that resulted in having a positive impact on the local economy and promote the long tradition of the area in dairy production. By modernizing and improving its production technology, the dairy effectively transformed the plant...

Due to the mountainous topography of the Basque Country, livestock breeders often lose a lot of time by going to seek their herd in the mountains every day, which is especially stressful for part time farmers. Thus, the livestock breeders expressed a need for change in the livestock management. This...

A national association of cheese eaters and producers established to support the development of solidarity between urban and rural people, and to encourage the settlement of small farmers and artisans in rural Lithuania. Viva sol has started a farmers’ market in Vilnius, a box scheme, environmental training and activities to support...

The digitisation of agriculture could help Europe address food security and environmental issues at the same time. But realising this vision will require e-skills, proper broadband infrastructure and big data management, experts warn.

According to the United Nation's world food security report, 815 million people faced serious hunger in 2016 – that is more than one and a half times the entire population of the European Union. There are numerous reasons why so many millions are affected by this issue, from conflict to...

The European Commission Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development has recently published the Cork 2.0 Action Plan.  This Action Plan outlines planned and completed activities across the EU to implement each of the ten policy orientations of the Cork 2.0 Declaration concerning rural communities and possible policy responses. This Action Plan...

A new case study of our case study series on Access to land has just been released. It is entitled "Andalusia: a recent history of land issues and struggles. From unproductive latifundio to workers’ cooperatives on public land".

In a study of women and their roles in rural areas adopted by the European Parliament’s Agriculture Committee and Women’s Committee (28 February), EU lawmakers called for an enhanced role for women in the EU farming sector. Faced with a number of severe challenges ranging from growing urbanisation to an ageing...

Blue growth is considered a miracle cure for stagnating economic growth. It will cure overexploited fish stocks, dwindling resources and feed a growing world population. In the absence of a Planet B it gives a glimmer of hope. Blue economy is a collective term for hopes of creating sustainable blue...

On April 6th, 2017, Euromontana’s team and members of the South-West Europe Circular Economy Group visited Alzen, a village in the Pyrenées Ariégeoises, in the south-west of France. Alzen has managed to become an attractive destination for new inhabitants, including young people. Indeed, in 40 years, Alzen quadrupled its population....

On February 24, 2017, Elisabetta Parravicini, Vice-President of Euromontana and President of member organization ERSAF (Ente Regionale per i Servizi all’Agricoltura e alle Foreste), presented Euromontana’s work and future objectives at a meeting on Italian mountains as driving forces for development. Elisabetta Parravicini began by recounting the history and outlining...

Around the year 2010, the research field of “transition studies” was gaining increasing attention and was developing into a true research community with the advent of the “Sustainability Transitions Research Network” (STRN), the organisation of annual international sustainability transition (IST) conferences, and the launch of a scientific journal, named “Environmental...

The Committee of the Regions hosted a conference and a public hearing on the future of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) on March 8th, 2017. Agriculture represents 14 million farms and 46 million jobs in the European Union and the CAP is one of the oldest EU policies. Vice-President Timmermans...

The 44 million workers in the EU’s food chain are vital to ensuring European citizens have access to sufficient quantities of high-quality food. From farmers to retailers, the sector is constantly evolving to keep up with the major challenges of the future.