It is often said that family farming is more than just a business - it’s a way of life and one that is deeply associated with values such as solidarity, continuity and commitment. In order to underpin rural vitality and encourage younger people into farming, it is important to address...

From farm to fork, agricultural cooperatives are present in every stage of the food supply chain. Agricultural cooperatives help producers to reduce market risk and transaction costs, access resources, achieve economies of scale and gain market power, through joint purchasing of supplies and services, processing and marketing. Small family farms have...

In this issue of GREAT insights we have asked the ‘custodians’ of the UN Year of Family Farming and the AU Year of Food Security, the Director General of the Food Agriculture Organization and the AU Commissioner for Agriculture, what outcomes they expect from these international processes, particularly in terms of the...

ARC2020 is organising a 10 day EU-wide Speakers’ Tour on land grabbing in Romania. It will take place from 21-30 April 2013. Mr Attila Szocs who monitors large scale agricultural land purchases in Romania, and Mr Dan Cismas a biodynamic farmer and co-president of the EcoRuralis peasant association, will tour European capitals...

2014 was designated the International Year of Family Farming (IYFF) at the 66th session of the United Nations General Assembly.  The implementation of the IYFF is being coordinated by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), with the objective of raising the profi le of family farming. The IYFF will focus world attention on the role of family farms...

Documentaries on the Best Practices in Rural Development carried out by young farmers that have been granted support under EU Rural development policies.

Documentaries on the Best Practices in Rural Development carried out by young farmers that have been granted support under EU Rural development policies.

Documentaries on the Best Practices in Rural Development carried out by young farmers that have been granted support under EU Rural development policies.

There are 3.9 million farm holdings in Romania, the majority of which are Family Farms of extensive semi-natural grassland pastoral systems and mixed farming systems. These semi-natural smallsale farmed landscapes are of significant economic importance. For example, the 1 million holdings between 1-10 ha (3.1 m ha, 20% of Romania’s...

Milking cows on a working dairy farm in Ireland  - a Family Farm

During the next 7 years, the new CAP is going to invest about EUR 63 billion in France's farming sector and rural areas. Key political priorities have been defined at European level such as: jobs, sustainability, modernizations, innovation and quality. In parallel, flexibility is given to France to adapt both...

In 2013, Fundația ADEPT began a long term partnership with operation Wallacea. OpWall carries out a worlwide programme in which schoolchildren and university students gather information about the changes in and threats to globally important areas of biodiversity. Tarnava Mare is the chosen European hotspot

Through the Best Practices 2012 competition, the Rural Network of Finland wishes to highlight the best projects and measures implemented as part of the EU-funded rural development programmes for mainland Finland and the Åland Islands for 2007–2013. This year, 193 competition entries were submitted for the following categories: 1) Leader...

Civil code is the basic private legal legislation regulating the status of individual subjects including for example agricultural tenure.(available in Czech language only)  

This paper presents issues and challenges for farm and enterprise diversification and integration of small scale farmers into value chains in East Europe and Central Asia (EECA). First, it discusses context and approaches to agricultural and rural income diversification. Second, it assesses the extent of agricultural diversification in EECA. Third,...

The 2012 agricultural year in the EU was characterised by a stable real agricultural income per labour unit , after the income growths recorded in 2011 (+8%) or in 2010 (+17%). On aggregate, since 2005 the EU-27 agricultural real income per labour unit has increased by 28.5% driven by an...

Les fientes de volailles constituent un très faible apport potentiel en matières organiques. Il faut plutôt considérer les fientes de volailles comme un engrais organique azoté bien que la teneur en azote total des fientes brutes soit inférieure à 3 %. L’apport en phosphore avec les fientes est également important....

Bien qu’elles ne représentent que quelques pourcents de la masse des terres cultivées, les matières organiques (MO) du sol ont des rôles extrêmement importants à jouer : construction et stabilité de la structure, maintien ou augmentation de la capacité à retenir l’eau ou les éléments minéraux, etc. Les différents types...

Since 1992, successive CAP reforms have led to the decoupling from production of mainstream support payments to farmers (Pillar 1). Instead of paying farmers for a quantity of production, payments are attached to the land that farmers use. To determine if a piece of land is eligible for CAP payments,...

The initial project dates back to 2003 (in the context of Leader+), when 8 farmers developed a quality programme for growing, feeding and breeding the typical “Alpine Grey” cattle. Following the decline of the milk market, the local farmers'' cooperative had the idea of extending the quality programme to the...