Food Archives - Agricultural and Rural Convention

Sustainable Food Systems | Feeding Ourselves Across Europe

April 24, 2024 Alison Brogan

Local communities in rural and urban areas can be powerful changemakers when it comes to food system transformation, even when national and EU policies fall way short. At Feeding Ourselves 2024, a roundtable on Bottom-Up Approaches to Sustainable Food Systems brought together actors engaged in the development of fair & ecological food systems in Germany, France and Ireland. ARC2020 was joined by Ann-Marie Weber of kollektiv von MORGEN (DE), Henrik Maas of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft bäuerliche Landwirtschaft (DE), Thierry Lohr, elected representative in the Municipality of Plessé (FR), and Fergal Anderson of Talamh Beo (IE). […]

Feeding Ourselves 2024 – Unlocking Local Food Economies

April 4, 2024 Oliver Moore

The Feeding Ourselves gathering 2024 saw a diverse range of people and topics over four days in the Irish midlands. From policy analysis to deep listening, tactile workshops to building bridges the four days were a full spectrum of experiences. Here we summarise Friday, a local food economies experience for activists, enablers and organisers in this area. So what’s needed, and what can be done to help embed and amplify agroecological local food provisioning by communities, for communities? Oliver Moore reports. […]

Seven things I learned at Feeding Ourselves 2024

April 2, 2024 Oliver Moore

Sometimes things are simple and sometimes they are complicated. In the Irish midlands, from 21-24th March, people representing dozens of organisations involved in agri-food, came together to work together on how we feed ourselves. here’s sever things I learned at this year’s event. […]

Sustainable Food Systems | Public Canteens – A Tool for Regional Resilience

March 19, 2024 ARC

Manger Demain (Eating Tomorrow) is a strategy and an organisation in Wallonia, Belgium aiming to coordinate, link and facilitate local and regional initiatives engaged in sustainable food. The work of Manger Demain was one of many inspiring examples presented at the Marburg Sustainable Food Systems gathering co-hosted by ARC2020, kollektiv von MORGEN and the Arbeitsgemeinschaft bauerliche Landwirtschaft last November as part of the Rural Europe Takes Action – Germany project […]

Feeding Ourselves 2024 – Unpacking Protest, Agroecology and Local Food Economies in Ireland

March 1, 2024 ARC

From March 21st – 24th, Feeding Ourselves is an opportunity for people and organisations working to strengthen local food economies and build a movement for agroecology, food sovereignty and rural resilience to convene and collaborate. […]

Future-Proof Food Systems in Europe – A Call for Action

February 22, 2024 ARC

ARC2020 together with kollektiv von MORGEN and the Arbeitsgemeinschaft bauerliche Landwirtschaft presents the “Marburg Action Plan for Future-Proof Food Systems in Europe”. […]

Parliament greenlights plans to loosen EU rules on new GMOs – but with key conditions

February 8, 2024 Natasha Foote

The European Parliament has given its blessing to the EU’s plan to loosen rules on new genetic technologies, but added key conditions on labelling requirements and a ban on patents – the latter of which could prove a key sticking point for moving forward with negotiations. Natasha Foote brings you up to speed on all you need to know. […]

Marburg Gathering | Building Bridges for Future-Proof Food Systems

December 14, 2023 Louise Kelleher

In early November, the Rural Resilience project was proud to support the European Action-Gathering for Sustainable Food Systems. This meeting of over 100 food systems actors working at local, regional, national and European levels was co-organised by ARC2020 and local partners Kollektiv von Morgen and AbL in Marburg, Germany. Report by Louise Kelleher of the Rural Resilience project. […]

Mind The Gap! Sustainable Food Systems Need Intergenerational Cooperation

November 29, 2023 ARC

Generations have different perceptions of time. While the elder generation looks back at their achievements, failures and lessons learnt, the younger generation projects their ambitions into the future and tries to grasp the unknown. Understanding each other’s needs and qualities is therefore often lost in non-communication, but it’s needed more than ever. […]

We Can’t Eat Promises! Good Food Good Farming month culminates in Brussels protest

November 20, 2023 ARC

“We can’t eat promises!” – The slogan of the Good Food Good Farming protest for a better food system, which took place in Brussels on November 8, 2023. The protest was the culmination of the Good Food Good Farming October Action Days, and highlighted the urgent need for transformative agri-food policies to realise key aspects of the EU’s Farm to Fork Strategy. […]

Sustainable Food Systems cannot be postponed! – From the Marburg Gathering

November 20, 2023 ARC

Photo essay reporting back from the Marburg Rural Action Gathering in November. While the eagerly awaited Marburg Action Plan for Future-proof Food Systems is in the works, here’s a glimpse into the achievements made during this dynamic event. […]

A Sustainable Food System Law Paving the Way for an Ambitious CAP Reform

November 2, 2023 Matteo Metta

As has become very familiar in recent months, another opportunity to better integrate CAP and the pledges of the European Green Deal is being missed. Instead of watering down the ambition, this time the mainstream political establishment simply postponed or abandoned DG SANTE’s law proposal for a European Framework for Sustainable Food Systems. Yet, there are many ways the CAP or the Long-Term Vision for Rural Areas could accompany and bridge with the upcoming SFS. […]

Planet Local Summit – International Vision for a Localised Future

October 20, 2023 Ursula Billington

Local food was a focus of the Planet Local Summit, a global gathering in Bristol, UK earlier this month that served to highlight the unparalleled value of the grassroots. The ‘largest gathering of its kind’, it was a rare in-person opportunity for actors from all over the world to learn, share and celebrate together, in a showing of solidarity for the movement. Ursula Billington reports from Bristol. […]

A Sustainable Food Systems Law – Important for People & Planet, Stalled by the Commission

October 17, 2023 Mathieu Willard

The Sustainable Food System Framework (SFS) was promised, and it must be upheld. As it appears that the SFS is losing its place in the commission’s legislative priorities, this two-part series aims to reaffirm the vital role this law could – and should – play. We are advocating for the SFS, which, in our view, forms the cornerstone of the Farm to Fork strategy. It represents the Commission’s first real opportunity to deliver a fully comprehensive food policy and could serve as the catalyst for a substantial reform of the CAP. Part 1 of two from Mathieu Willard. […]

EU Fails to Deliver on Food System Transformation in Face of Environmental Collapse

October 10, 2023 Jeroen Candel

In this op-ed, Dr. Jeroen Candel, associate professor of food and agricultural policy, Wageningen University, the Netherlands, points to the failures of EU institutions to deliver on the Farm to Fork strategy, despite the impacts of worsening climate and biodiversity collapse. […]