Latest from EU Member States

Italy – Digitalisation, Diverse Farms and Rural Resilience

Digital tools that suit the complexity of diversified farms and meet their specific needs, can bring new challenges but, once these are overcome, they can contribute to farm resilience and viability. Meet two Italian farm enterprises and see how their stories and narratives show that digitalisation means not only access to connectivity, but also capacity to use, manage and control technologies. […]

Latest from EU Member States

Swiss Study Backs Water Clean-Up

As part of Switzerland’s groundwork for its Clean Drinking Water Initiative, the Swiss federal government’s food and  environmental agency Agroscope has completed a second, detailed study on the environmental impact the clean drinking water initiative can achieve. Peter Crosskey found that Agroscope’s preliminary findings suggest that while the country could indeed reduce pesticide levels in its drinking water, the gains would be eroded by the current carbon footprint of imported foods. […]

Latest from Brussels

CAP Budget Agreed for Next Seven Years

After almost five days of intense meetings, EU Leaders agreed on a seven year budget and recovery package yesterday. This includes the MFF (multiannual financial framework, or typical EU budget) of E1.07 Trillion, plus a specific pandemic recovery package of  E750 billion, split almost evenly between grants (E390bn) and loans (E360bn). How is CAP impacted? […]

Main stories

A Vision for Rural Europe – Civil Society asks Questions

ARC2020 brought together a wide range of civil society participants for the A Vision for Rural Europe event. This web conference was organised by the Renew Europe political group, was hosted in the European Parliament distributed all over Europe via web conference streaming services. In advance of the event, we asked civil society for their key questions to bring to the discussion, and to help in the building of a vision and strategy for rural Europe.   […]

Main stories

A Vision for Rural Europe – Event Report

At last week’s A Vision for Rural Europe web conference, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced an EU wide public consultation on the future of rural areas. This consultation is expected to begin in the Autumn. Here we summarise the core civil society contributions to the event, which ARC2020 mobilised, and give some background info on the process – formal and less formal, for the upcoming rural consultation.  […]

Main stories

Letter From the Farm – of Seeds and not Reseeding

Madeline McKeever has been farming in west Cork, on the edge of the Atlantic, since 1999. First in dairy and cheese making, then beef, and now mostly selling organic vegetable seeds. Madeline has seen a lot – like the return of mushrooms, white clover, and dozens of plants in her unploughed sward. […]

Latest from key partners

Working Document on “A Vision and Strategy for Rural Europe – Now.”

A just and sustainable Europe will not be possible without rural considerations being properly integrated into the plans for Covid-19 recovery, for CAP and for the EU Green Deal. We invite you to read our draft working document on a vision and strategy for rural Europe, and then work with us to further develop and refine it, in the days, weeks and months ahead. Together we ourselves must develop our way of working together, to present a coherent voice to represent rural Europe.  […]

Latest from key partners

Milking The Planet: How Big Dairy Is Heating Up The Planet And Hollowing Rural Communities

Big Dairy’s greenhouse gas emissions are increasing, but the corporations responsible are not being held to account. Meanwhile consolidation in the dairy industry is squeezing smaller operators and hurting rural communities. It’s time to hold agribusiness accountable for its climate footprint, argues Shefali Sharma in a new report from the Institute for Agriculture & Trade Policy. […]