Year: 2021

Latest from key partners

Patrick’s Rants | Farming Communities. Cooperatives. They Rock.

June 21, 2021 Patrick Worms

Why should farmers consider community, cooperative approaches? What are the benefits to doing so – and what happens when more individualistic approaches are taken instead? In the first of our occasional contributions from Patrick Worms, this testing topic is grappled with.  Patrick Worms trained as a molecular geneticist and is the Senior Science Policy Advisor of World Agroforestry (ICRAF) and the President of the European Agroforestry Federation. These rants however, are 100% Patrick’s own personal opinion, and are not necessarily the views of any of the organisations he works for or represents. […]

Latest from EU Member States

Romania | How Wild Is Too Wild?

June 18, 2021 Paul White

What would you consider to be an acceptable level of personal risk for you and your family in livestock farming? Imagine life in a small caravan with two young children on the edge of wilderness where wolves and bears freely roam. Imagine these same apex predators testing your ability to protect your flock at night whilst you are trying to sleep. This is the constant reality for a young family trying to make a living from their land in Transylvania. Photo essay by Paul White. […]

Latest from the ARC network

Western Balkans | Reviving Rural Areas & Moving Towards EU Integration

June 17, 2021 ARC

This week the second Balkan Rural Parliament took place in Ohrid, North Macedonia. Organised by the Balkan Rural Development Network, the Balkan Rural Parliament gives a voice to rural communities in the making of rural development policy for the Western Balkans. For EU accession countries, rural development is a key driver to accelerate the process of EU integration. The Parliament highlighted the need to strengthen mutual trust on every level between people and national institutions, as well as between the Western Balkans and the EU to build equal partnerships, writes Aleksandra Todorovska. […]

Latest from EU Member States

Letter From The Farm | Welcome To The Burren

June 11, 2021 Shane Casey

Welcome to the Burren in the West of Ireland, where Shane Casey’s family have been farming Blackhead mountain for some two hundred years. Here, the unique limestone landscape requires a unique way of farming. Traditions are passed down through many generations of Burren farmers to maintain the critical symbiotic relationship between farming and conservation. In his first Letter From The Farm, Shane takes us through farming in the Burren, past and present. […]

Latest from EU Member States

France | Tasting Independence in Beaufortain

June 4, 2021 ARC

In this excerpt from the book “Rural Europe on the Move: A travel guide to transitions”, Philippe Barret tells the story of Beaufortain, a community in the French Alps that has been coming together to practice rural sustainability since the 17th century. Beaufortain also happens to be the home of ARC2020’s project to build rural resilience in France – “Nos campagnes en résilience”. In this chapter you’ll meet some of the key people involved in this latest venture: coordinator Valérie Geslin, volunteer Jeanine Sochas, and farmer Pierre Gachet.  […]

Rural Resilience

Extrait de livre | Goûter à l’indépendance

June 4, 2021 ARC

Dans cet extrait du livre “L’EUROPE RURALE EN MOUVEMENT – Voyage aux pays des transitions”, Philippe Barret nous raconte l’histoire du Beaufortain (73), un petit territoire de 4 villages au cœur des Alpes françaises. Depuis le 17ème siècle ses habitants se réunissent pour préserver une agriculture familiale et la vie à la montagne. Dans ce chapitre, vous rencontrerez certaines des personnes impliquées dans « Nos campagnes en résilience » : la coordinatrice du projet Valérie Geslin, la bénévole Jeanine Sochas et le paysan Pierre Gachet. […]

Rural Resilience

Paroles de paysans | Marie et Gilles AVOCAT

June 4, 2021 ARC

Qu’est-ce que le social dans l’agriculture ? Que peut apporter « Nos campagnes en résilience » aux paysans ? Marie et Gilles AVOCAT élevaient des brebis et produisaient du fromage au sein d’un GAEC. Autour d’un café dans une ambiance familiale et conviviale, ils nous livrent, avec passion, leur vision sociale de l’agriculture. […]

Latest from Brussels

Parliament Holds Firm as Council Demands Rejected – for now

May 28, 2021 Oliver Moore

Despite a sequence of late night meetings and to-and-fro of proposals covering most of the contentious outstanding areas, the so-called jumbo-trilogues talks have ended without agreement. Parliament and Council failed to reconcile their positions on a number of key areas. The remaining areas include”green architecture” (a number of GAECs, ring-fencing of support for eco-schemes and environmental investments, tracking climate spending, alignment to the Green Deal), internal convergence, the social dimension and coupled income support. So what happened? […]

Main stories

UK | Pond Life Revives Hope for On-Farm Wildlife 

May 27, 2021 Ursula Billington

Pond restoration yields dramatic results for nature. Seedbanks, dormant for 150 years, spring back to life; rare indigenous plants return within months. Invertebrate populations explode, significant for severely declining freshwater biodiversity. Insect chimneys attract huge numbers of birdlife and twice the species normally seen in the area. Ursula Billington reports on a farmer-inspired project to restore pondlife in Norfolk, UK. […]

Latest from Brussels

Withdraw The CAP Movement Takes on Timmermans, Trilogues and Parliament Plenary

May 24, 2021 ARC

The Withdraw the CAP movement emerged in recent months to challenge Europe’s biggest policy spend. This initiative of young people, many climate strikers from the Fridays for Future movement, have taken the EU’s top brass to task over the gap between environmental rhetoric and business-as-usual reality. SO what happened at their  meeting last with with Vice-President of the EU Commission Frans Timmermans, of EU Green Deal Fame. Here the group who met him give us the lowdown, and tell us what they are focused on next for withdraw the cap.  […]