Latest from key partners

Rural Europe Takes Action | The Sámi Environmental Programme

From the Sámi perspective, all matters are environmental matters. The Sámi Environmental Programme is a holistic framework with a long-term, decolonised perspective on sustainability and Indigenous culture. Josefina Skerk, former Vice President of the Sámi Parliament, shares powerful perspectives on life, land and climate justice in a conversation originally published in “Rural Europe Takes Action – No more business as usual”, the policy guide launched by ARC2020 and Forum Synergies in June 2022. […]

Latest from key partners

Op Ed | Hunger Games and Locked in Pesticides

In this op-ed, Matthias Wolfschmidt of Foodwatch International unpacks the EU’s food system, its reliance on cheap imports, its generation of food waste, the power of lobby groups and Europe’s subsequent reliance on damaging pesticides and fertilizers. In this context, Wolfschmidt considers how the weaponisation of hunger embeds a lock in of problematic agri-industrial inputs, while also pointing to a way out of this bind within 15 years.   […]

Main stories

Ukraine | Green Road of Ecovillages, Six Months into War

The Green Road of Ecovillages is a network of ecological communities and permaculture centers that give shelter to refugees from Ukraine. Some of the displaced people are still in Ukraine, others are outside Ukraine. The Green Road has developed organically on the ground and with with international, mutual aid support, in particular from Denmark and the Netherlands. After our initial article, here we check in on new challenges and how they are being dealt with. By Anastasiya Volkova of GEN Ukraine. […]

Latest from Brussels

Future of Europe at European Rural Parliament – Sufficiency, Integrated Policy, & Rural Action

At the European Rural Parliament, ongoing in Kielce, Poland, the Future of Europe takes centre stage today. ARC2020 president Hannes Lorenzen hosted a panel on this topic, with Marion Eckardt (ELARD), Katrina Idu (Forum Synergies) Normunds Popens (European Commission), Radim Sršeň European Committee of the Regions, Goran Šoster (PREPARE) and Toma Šutić (European Commission). […]

Latest from EU Member States

France | Meet The Farmer-Bakers Proving Their Skills

Sébastien loves bread. Shaped by a farming background, he was drawn to cooking, but experience taught him that the reality in the kitchen was very far from his ideals. Fabienne studied accounting and worked a corporate job in the city. She was happy to team up with her husband Sébastien on the farm in the West of France. Here in their on-farm bakery, between batches of bread, they share their views on life as farmer-bakers. […]

Rural Resilience

Paroles de paysans | Paysans boulangers, un métier à façonner 1

Depuis toujours passionné par le pain et moulé par des parents et des grands parents agriculteurs, Sébastien était surtout attiré par la cuisine. Différentes expériences l’ont conduit au constat que la réalité était bien éloignée de ses idéaux et que les produits travaillés en cuisine étaient de piètre qualité. Fabienne, quant à elle a fait des études de comptabilité. Travaillant dans un grand groupe en ville, elle a rejoint sans hésiter le projet de Sébastien. Dans le Fournil de La Barre (44), au rythme des fournées, tous les deux nous racontent leur vision de leur métier. Première partie de leur conversation avec Valérie GESLIN. […]