Dairy farming is currently facing a number of challenges. On the one hand, the products have to meet high environmental standards and animal welfare requirements, on the other hand the market demands cheap products. Kirsten Wosnitza, who runs a farm of 120 dairy cows in Schleswig-Holstein with her husband Gerd...

Josef Plank, Secretary-General at the Federal Ministry for Sustainability and Tourism, was invited by Copa and Cogeca at the European Farmers Congress 2018 to present the ambitions of the Austrian Presidency of the European Council on farming issues (UTPs, CAP.

Copa-Cogeca together with the UECBV and APCPR organised a meeting in Bucharest aimed at increasing awareness and sharing good practices on biosecurity among European pigmeat farmers. As one of the countries that is most severely affected by African Swine Fever (ASF), Romania was the ideal place to host this first...

La salud y el derecho a una alimentación adecuada son derechos que se encuentran avalados y secundados por numerosos tratados, acuerdos y jurisprudencia desde el nivel internacional hasta el local. Sin embargo, a pesar de los compromisos, nos encontramos ante una situación de emergencia debido al ininterrumpido aumento de la...

The present report looks into the agricultural knowledge base in Europe, how it needs to adapt and how it can contribute to new challenges. Agricultural science being a “systems” science by nature, in order to act it must broaden its scope and become an efficient problemsolving tool. It also needs...

Romanian Rural Network News no.6/2018.  a 

El informe ha sido elaborado por la Fundación Entretantos, con el apoyo de la Red de Ciudades por la Agroecología y la Fundación RUAF. Consiste en el estudio comparado de políticas alimentarias desarrolladas en once ciudades integradas en dicha Red, partiendo de un análisis de políticas alimentarias urbanas a nivel internacional y...

The EU's rural development policy evolved as part of the development of the CAP, from a policy dealing with the structural problems of the farm sector to a policy addressing the multiple roles of farming in society and, in particular, challenges faced in its wider rural context.

Agriculture in Europe results in the production of food for both the European population and for the export sector. Significant environmental and social problems have emerged with the intensification of European agriculture. These include the loss of biodiversity, the contamination of soils, water, and food with pesticides, and the eutrophication...

Wild Fruits is an Operational Group from Germany working on the production and processing potential of wild fruits such as chokeberries (Aronia spp.), roses (Rosa spp.) and flowering quinces (Chaenomeles spp.). There is a high market demand for these fruits which are considered health products, however there are very few...

Today’s agricultural policy is barely recognisable. Not only has the CAP been vastly simplified with the amalgamation of an array of different direct payment schemes into a single farm payment, it is also a more efficient mechanism, meeting more objectives at a lower cost. A policy that once ate up...

Special hard cover edition! Food is a very important part of many European citizens' lives. It brings family and friends together around the table to talk, laugh and celebrate and in many places, food goes hand in hand with the local culture. Not only is food a hugely important part...

The ‘Study on risk management in EU agriculture’ provides an analysis of current agricultural risks and risk management instruments. It provides a mapping of relevant risks in EU agriculture. Information on availability and use of risk management instruments was collected in all Member States though consultations with public authorities, farmers’...

A new expert group is to be created by the European Commission to provide expertise, advice and possible recommendations on enhancing the role of the EU agri-food and agro-industrial sector in the sustainable economic development of Africa. The first step in the creation of the Task Force Rural Africa (TFRA) is...

This study presents the main trends in total factor and resource productivity in recent decades. The main pathways for sustainable intensification are explored through case studies and policy analysis. The paper presents a normative analysis of policy tools able to reconcile productivity and sustainability requirements and also provides policy recommendations...

The global environmental and social-economic crises of industrialized agriculture have led to the emergence of agroecology as an alternative approach aiming to increase the ecological, social and economic sustainability of agri–food systems. The ‘multi-level perspective’ is now a widely used framework to understand and promote the upscaling of local innovation niches, such as...

The member organizations of LIFE in Spain present amendments to the “Comprehensive Management Plan for the conservation of fishery resources affected by fisheries carried out with purse seines, trawls and passive gears in the Mediterranean coast of Spain”.

This study presents a state of the art overview on urban agriculture and peri-urban agriculture (UPUA), the diversity of phenomena, motivations, distinctive features, benefits and limitations. UPUA is contextualized in relation to societal and economic transformations, EU strategic objectives, policies and regional food system approaches. Using best practice examples, the...

Romanian Rural Network Newsletter, with a lot of news from Romania and EU

Romanian Rural Network Newsletter, with news article regarding Rural development in Romania and in EU