Land degradation in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is believed to be expanding at an alarming rate, accompanied by the lowest agriculture and livestock yields of any region in the world. While cereal production has increased marginally over the past two decades, more than 70 percent of this growth is due to...

Since the mid-term review, the French government has had the objective of maintaining grass-based livestock systems, and sheep and goat systems in particular. This has been translated into significant financial transfers from arable farms to the livestock sector. The new CAP continues this policy in favour of livestock systems, through...

Ireland is a single payment region on paper. However, the convergence process will not be completed by 2019 (the Department commitment is that no-one will have a payment rate below 60% of the 2019 national average by that time) and payment rates over the national average will only be reduced...

As the European Capital of Culture 2018, Leeuwarden-Fryslân is developing a Celebrating Diversity programme to reverse the trend of decreasing bird, bee and fish populations. We envisage inter-community links to exchange experiences on new governance arrangements for rural areas and to create a legacy.

Expectations in FARNET are currently high for Fisheries Local Action Groups (FLAGs) to be increasingly active in fostering local development around Europe. In particular, we hope to see increased cooperation with LEADER LAGs and to support local groups to tap into multiple EU funding sources (multi-funding).

A Hungarian LAG located in the northern part of Hungary and bordering with Slovakia, wanted to support local producers and craftsmen by providing them new marketing/trading opportunities. To achieve this the LAG established a permanent local market were producers from both countries could sell their products. Project activities included the setting...

Many rural areas in Europe are still deprived of high speed (30+ Mbps) internet connections, which holds back the potentials of farmers, rural businesses and entrepreneurs to grow their activities. Next generation broadband access for rural areas is an increasingly clear priority for EU rural development policy.

This research comprises an in-depth analysis of the Slovenian pig meat supply chain where the models of supply chain relationship in pig production were scrutinised. The data was collected in an extensive nation-wide survey including 152 respondents. Besides the structural characteristics of farms the focus was on vertical relationships and...

A major symposium on the the global impacts of UK food consumption. Food for humans and conservation are in conflict. The challenge for humanity is how is to produce more food for more people on less land and with less environmental impact. Feeding people should not come at the expense...

In Austria, apart from corn salads, hardly any organic vegetables are available during the winter from domestic production. As a result, most of the vegetables on sale are imported or grown through high-energy intensive production. To address this problem, a project has been developed called winter harvest: seasonal, energy-extensive and...

The Flemish Knowledge and Research Network for Organic Food and Farming (FORK) was created in 2009 by Landwijzer, the organic training centre, BioForum, which represents the Flemish organic food and farming sector, the Coordination Centre for Applied Research and Extension on Organic Agriculture (CCBT) and the Network for Organic Food...

The 17 regional governments in Spain have considerable autonomy in agricultural and nature conservation policies. There are 17 individual Rural Development Programmes, as well as a national programme for certain measures. In the case of Pillar 1 of the CAP, a common model of implementation was agreed between all the...

Copa and Cogeca : the voice of European Farmers & Agri-cooperatives talk about producing food for a growing Europe

This study analyses the seed, feed, energy, fertilizer, and plant protection agents farm input sectors from two perspectives: the demand side and the supply side. Average input shares in the EU-27 for seeds and fertilizers declined while they increased for feeds. Market concentration is the largest in the plant protection...

This Policy Brief has been issued in conjunction with and partly as a summary of "Towards effective national forest funds", Forestry Paper no. 174. It aims to give a quick overview of the mechanism of financing sustainable forest management projects through national forest funds (NFFs) and on how this financing...

The wide diversity of different grains produced by organic farmers, as a result of their long-term crop rotation systems, means a significant number of dedicated silos are needed to meet the enhanced requirements for quality and traceability. These are often unavailable in the existing storage facilitates used by the conventional...

This brief describes the changing context within which public forestry administrations operate and outlines concrete steps they can take to adapt to this changing context and to strengthen their capacity to fulfil their mandates.

Dairy farmers generally produce either summer or winter milk, depending on their farm’s calving system, with few exceptions, where milk is produced all year round. Due to its higher production costs, especially the price of organic feed, winter milk attracts a higher price premium than summer milk. Although some organic...

Research priorities are often defined by policy makers without involving stakeholders sufficiently, or with ineffective measures put in place to disseminate the final results. Responding to this problem, the Dutch organic sector set up Bioconnect in 2005, with the aim of reorganising the coordination of organic research and knowledge transfer...

Nowadays, one cannot talk about an authentic rural tourism within a certain destination without emphasizing the local cultural heritage (cultural landscape, customs and traditions, gastronomy and so on). In the existing context, the local gastronomy is perceived as a marketing instrument efficient in differentiating the rural touristic destinations. A special...