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...

Converting to an organic farming system or developing one further, can present major challenges for conventional producers who lack basic or advanced information about agro-ecological practices, or who do not understand the value of such practices. This often creates a barrier to potential new converts, or for the up-take of...

Agriculture is a devolved power in all 3 cases in the UK (Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland); English agricultural matters are run by an England-only administration (Defra) but under the control of UK Ministers and the UK parliament. The environment is similarly devolved, but habitat conservation status for Article 17...

The aim of the project Protein Tips was to increase the amount of locally produced fodder, as a response to climate change, in order to reduce the need to import soy beans for protein fodder. Research showed that the use of locally produced protein fodder crops could considerably improve the...

In September 2015, family farmer Jyoti Fernandes spoke at a Policy Debate in the European Parliament. The video is embedded below and a full transcript of the talk is available here. Being part of the UK Landworkers’ Alliance and the European Coordination of La Vía Campesina (host of the debate),...

The advantages of cooperatives, groups and organisations of producers.

All EU citizens benefit from Rural Development Programme (RDP) actions and the 2014-2020 programming period involves new emphasis on improved implementation opportunities that can boost the range and reach of RDP benefits. The following overview article identifies some of the main issues that can help improve the effectiveness of RDP...

Summer mountain dairy farming has a long tradition in Norway. At the same time it seems to be more interest in seasonal mountain processing expected due to: Health aspects of mountain products may be important for demand Grazing is to be promoted due to animal welfare concerns The risks are probably related to...

Farmers and foresters from all over Europe are very keen to start up new innovative projects, since the European Commission has made funding opportunities available to set up ‘Operational Groups’. Inger Pehrson, Coordinator of the Innovation Network from the Swedish Rural Network confirms: “It is the first time that a...

Rural Development Programmes (RDPs) can use a combination of grants and FIs to support projects and schemes. Grants distribute funds that do not need to be repaid by beneficiaries. FIs provide RDP funding for investments that are repaid by beneficiaries through loans and micro-finance, guarantees, equity, interest rate subsidies, or...

This conference aims at advancing the scientific state of the art in research on multifunctional agriculture and urban-rural relations by bringing together scholars from a wide range of disciplines from many parts of the world. The 2015 edition will focus on reconnecting agriculture and food chains to societal needs.

La mondialisation du système alimentaire a certes apporté aux consommateurs des avantages en termes de facilité d’accès aux aliments, de coût de l’alimentation, de standardisation des produits alimentaires et de sécurité sanitaire. Néanmoins, cette mondialisation, c’est-à-dire l’avancée d’une production, d’une distribution et d’une consommation de masse, a des impacts sociaux,...

Nutrition, as we all know, is an important determinant of health. A balanced diet, with high consumption of fruit and vegetables, helps prevent a number of chronic diseases and improves health outcomes across the board. This is good not only for the individual but for the economy as a whole,...

The Council discussed the proposal for a regulation on organic farming in view of a general approach. It made significant progress on a number of articles. However some member states requested more time and pointed out the need to reflect further on some sensitive issues such as controls and the...

Nowadays the structural changes in Europe require a transition from the old re-distributive welfare to a new kind of welfare, called productive welfare, where the user cooperates to produce the new services. Firstly we have the citizen as passive user of services (around the ’50 and the ’60), or he/her...

Family farming is the predominant business model in European agriculture. The key challenges faced by family farms are considered in this briefing note and the effectiveness of policy measures in the EU, both the current measures and those agreed for the 2014 to 2020 period, in tackling these challenges is...