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.

Six months after the Cork 2.0 event and the publication of the Declaration “A better life in rural areas”, Copa and Cogeca (farmers and agri-cooperatives), CEJA (young farmers) and CEPF (forest owners) organised a joint event in Brussels, on March 22nd, 2017. The event, entitled “Cork 2.0 Declaration – Acting...

Large-scale urban agriculture is on the rise globally, with more and more farms appearing in our cities. A far cry from allotments and community gardens, urban farms occupy much bigger spaces; they can employ people, regenerate huge neighbourhoods and give residents access to fresh produce on their doorsteps.

The second newsletter of the SIMRA project has been published! It provides information on SIMRA’s progress after one year of working on the project; on SIMRA’s first stakeholder workshop in Bratislava, Slovakia, in October 2016; and on SIMRA’s first results such as a social innovation definition, the launch of innovative...

A number of organisations made submissions to the CAP consultation, which closed last week. Here we outline three differing ones  – one from public health, one from farming  and one, which we devote more space to, from a platform bringing a number of organisations together in Germany.

The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) organised a conference on the theme “New economy models and social innovation: an opportunity for a better Europe” on the 23rd of February 2017, in Brussels. As a partner of the SIMRA project (Social Innovation in Marginalised Rural Areas), Euromontana attended the conference...

Within the framework of the Slow Fish initiatives, on the 21st of May the Low Impact Fishers of Europe held a workshop addressed to the stakeholders of the sector to discuss together the policy needed in the EU for small scale fishers and to better inform the future work to be...

FAO has issued a set of calls for expression of interest for internship positions, specifically encouraging applicants from the Global South and Indigenous Peoples.

One of the main objectives of SIMRA is creating collaborative and learning opportunities where local stakeholders (communities, researchers, businesses) could work together towards the realization of social innovation initiatives, which could leave a lasting legacy in the area where they are promoted. These initiatives in SIMRA are named Innovation Actions...

Avec 7 emplois induits par exploitation, l'agriculture est un secteur économique majeur en France. Elle contribue à l'économie nationale, mais aussi au maintien d'un tissu économique local sur l'ensemble des territoires. Pourtant, trop souvent, les actions politiques dans le domaine agricole ont manqué d'un cap clairement défini et clairement affiché....