Year: 2021

Rural Resilience

Evènement | Face aux problématiques urgentes, aller vite mais pas trop vite

October 11, 2021 Louise Kelleher

Samedi le 18 septembre 2021, l’association ARC2020 est allée à la rencontre du GAEC de La Ferme des 7 chemins, une des initiatives campagnardes engagée dans le projet « Nos campagnes en résilience ». Situé sur la commune de PLESSE en Loire Atlantique, le GAEC a initié une rencontre entre différents partenaires afin d’échanger et de se questionner sur le développement de la ferme. On vous propose à travers cet article de découvrir ce temps fort au sein d’une initiative campagnarde rayonnante. […]

Latest from EU Member States

France | Rural Resilience – All In Good Time

October 11, 2021 Louise Kelleher

What happens when a farm invites the wider community to collectively tease out its future? In September ARC2020 visited Brittany to find out. Seed savers, farm workers and chefs sat down with elected officials and representatives of regional organisations to share insights and listen to each other’s experiences. Louise Kelleher reports. […]

Latest from EU Member States

Romania | Making Hay In Transylvania

October 8, 2021 Paul White

In Transylvania’s hay meadows people continue to farm in harmony with nature. Determined to capture the traditional skill of scything on camera, photographer Paul White found out he would have to get up very early in the morning. Here he documents the hard work involved in a traditional haymaking process that is clean, sustainable and yields enormous benefits for biodiversity. Photo essay by Paul White. […]

Latest from key partners

The EU finally has the makings of a sustainable food policy – why is it under attack?

October 7, 2021 ARC

The Farm to Fork strategy is having an impact – and the forces of business-as-usual aren’t happy. Here Camille Perrin (BEUC), Nick Jacobs (IPES-Food) and Nina Holland (CEO) express their concerns about studies and corporate-led events “based on models which are ill-suited to evaluating the impacts of transforming our food systems.” Further, the authors point to how inappropriate these studies and events are when assessing the Farm to Fork Strategy itself. […]

Latest from key partners

Seeds For Hope On Pellworm Island

October 5, 2021 ARC

Seeds for hope were sown this summer at the Seeds4all seminar, when cereal farmers and breeders from several countries gathered on the island of Pellworm in July to discuss the future of local organic seed production. Off the German coast in the North Sea, Pellworm faces its own challenges as an island below sea level. In this weirdly rainy and burning summer, it was a fitting location for talk of sustainability and resilience. Report by Seeds4all. […]

Latest from EU Member States

Slashing Space for Nature? Ireland Backsliding on CAP basics

October 5, 2021 Oliver Moore

Cutting space for nature on farms, from its own proposed level of 5% to just 4%, is the most brutal of adjustments mooted by the Department of  Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) in one of the final CAP consultations last Thursday.  A list of five for the most part unambitious eco-schemes has also been announced, which will do little to move Irish agriculture towards a more environmentally sustainable place.  […]

Latest from EU Member States

Ireland’s Our Rural Future – a rural digitisation gold standard? 

October 4, 2021 Oliver Moore

Broadband for all, even in the most remote regions; smart, revitalised villages and towns with hundreds of remote working hubs; a rural youth assembly, significant numbers of public and private workers for rural areas; Local Digital Strategies in administrative regions; and all done in a well-planned way to optimize synergies and transition towards carbon neutrality –  it sound like a sustainable rural digitalisation dream. So is it?  […]

Latest from EU Member States

Letter From The Farm | Health, Husbandry & High Quality Meat

October 1, 2021 Shane Casey

We’re back on Shane Casey’s farm in the Burren, Ireland. Here, with the harvest in full swing, lambs and weanlings are being sold. In an ideal world Shane would like his meat to be consumed locally. In reality, in rural areas like his, supply outstrips demand. Shane prides himself on the quality of his meat. Working backwards from butchery to husbandry to breeding, he shares some insights into the process.  […]

Main stories

Agroforestry and CAP – all Talk, no Trees

September 27, 2021 Andrea Beste

Agroforestry is positively highlighted in many adopted texts and directives from Brussels and is also mentioned in the framework of the CAP and proposed as a possible measure of the Eco-Schemes. Despite its undisputed benefits, it is still largely unknown. What’s more surprising is that the current process of CAP strategic plans seems to virtually overlook it – so is it all spin, no substance?  Andrea Beste has more. […]

Latest from the ARC network

Farming Bounded By Our Biological Boundaries – Part 2

September 27, 2021 Stuart Meikle

Despite the climate change mitigation emphasis on carbon sequestration, building soil carbon is first about food security, second about atmospheric carbon drawdown. By working with nature’s natural cycles to provide nutritious food with a low environmental footprint, Regenerative Agriculture will provide the transition from fossil-fuelled agro-chemistry to utilizing the farm’s natural resources, argues Stuart Meikle in the second part of this series. […]