Collective intelligence on a European scale – could this be the missing piece of the puzzle to make the agroecological transition a reality? Thierry Lohr, local councillor for Plessé, France, and partner of the Rural Resilience project, tells the story of an idea that has galvanised a pan-European collective of rural changemakers: the Peasant University.
By Thierry Lohr
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I remember very clearly where it all began. It was during a festive evening in Grzybów, Poland, on December 1st, 2024, amidst the excitement of the European Rural Resilience initiative led by ARC2020. Since then, I have had one idea in mind. An idea that would bring five years of work and encounters across Europe to life through a living infrastructure for learning, action and territorial transformation. An idea that would radiate from Plessé, rooted in our local democratic experience and our Local Agricultural and Food Policy (PAAC). An idea to tackle the crises of agriculture, climate and democracy.
That idea is the Peasant University.
European challenges, local responses
We’ve been talking about the “agricultural transition” for years, but we still don’t see it happening. Instead the situation is getting inexorably worse. The responses to today’s crises are not equal to the scale of the challenges. European agricultural policies remain insufficient, top-down and disconnected from reality, leaving us, rural actors, alone to face major challenges.
For me, as a local councillor in Plessé, these very concrete issues are all in a day’s work: helping new entrants in farming, protecting farmland, keeping farms alive and economically viable, ensuring access to healthy food for all, and adapting our practices and our territory to climate change.
And that’s where ARC2020 comes in. The NGO came to Plessé in 2022 to learn more about our democratic governance and our PAAC. We’ve been hitched to their caravan across Europe ever since.
Learning to work together
What struck me from the very first European gathering organised by ARC2020 was the creative energy. When very different people—farmers, researchers, artists, politicians and citizens—from every country decide to work together, they find creative ways of learning to do things together. It’s not the standard setup where certified experts talk and everyone else listens. Here, everyone has something to contribute. Everyone is legitimate. Everyone is an expert as a user and a practitioner. This accelerates the process of reflection, because ideas circulate more quickly, adapt and evolve.
With ARC2020 we are building a living network between territories. What works for us can inspire others. And in return, we learn an enormous amount from them.
This networking dimension is fundamental to the idea of the Peasant University. It starts from lived realities and is based on the idea that the knowledge already present on farms, in kitchens, cooperatives and territories becomes richer through sharing and co-construction. The Peasant University is the place where this knowledge comes together to be challenged and enriched. From food sovereignty and local food systems, to access to land and farm succession, seed saving and cultivated biodiversity, viable agricultural economic models and resilience in the face of ecological collapse… all of this is discussed, but the discussions are always grounded in concrete, lived experience.
When a Polish farmer shares a solution with a market gardener from Brittany, or when a German politician exchanges ideas with a French collective, we create collective intelligence on a European scale.
A political project
This Peasant University idea has found a home in Plessé because it has a physical home: the Château de la Roche, a former hospital that the municipality is making available for the project. It’s found a home in Plessé because the municipality is at the centre of a whole ecosystem of actors working towards agroecological transformation. It’s found a home in Plessé because here we have established a form of democracy that actively involves local residents – and the famous transition must be democratic.
Clearly, then, the Peasant University is not neutral. It’s a project that is profoundly political, in the noblest sense of the word. It demonstrates that municipalities and rural territories can become powerful sites of transformation. It places rural areas at the centre, not as spaces in decline, but as laboratories for the future.
In Plessé, we’ve shown with our PAAC that a municipality can take action for access to land, new entrants and local supply chains. But to make it work, the role of elected representatives has to change. They must be more than administrators; they need to learn to become facilitators of collective dynamics. Our responsibility as local councillors is to create the conditions that allow people to come together, cooperate and experiment. It is to embrace a form of political advocacy. And it is to restore democracy where it has too often disappeared.
The Peasant University is very much part of this work.
The missing piece of the puzzle
It started with a hunch that the agroecological transition has been so slow to materialise because something was missing. What was missing was a place for the actors in the local ecosystem to come together, to build and strengthen relationships, and to empower action. A place for transmitting and producing knowledge, know-how and ways of being, in service of a living, transformative and emancipatory peasant agroecology.
Our proposal is simply to provide a tool that serves an ecosystem of actors already present in the territory, rather than creating yet another organisation. We started talking to these actors in October 2025: organisations supporting new entrants and farm succession (such as CAP44, GAB, Atelier Paysan, CIVAM, ISSAT agricultural college, Étable Nantaise), food processing (Université des sciences et des pratiques gastronomiques, Plessé’s school canteen, La Boîte Ensemble Bâtissons l’Emploi), production sectors (local breeds, peasant seeds), environmental organisations (watershed authority, fishing federation), and many others. Then, last November, we then brought them along to the European gathering to meet other actors from across Europe, and imagine what shape this Peasant University could take.
This 2025 gathering marked a turning point: we now had a collective ready to embark on the adventure. I felt that this project could truly become a reality! However, since none of the actors involved is currently in a position to carry the project, all are relying on the municipality to continue facilitating this momentum. This is a precarious situation, not least because it depends on the local council getting elected…
Today, however, we already have something to show for our efforts. We have succeeded in laying the foundations of a Peasant University that is locally rooted yet also connected to other territories, with the capacity to circulate knowledge, practices and solidarity. And we have:
- assembled a collective of local actors and actors from several countries, creating lasting ties between organisations and territories;
- developed key themes and areas of work (new entrants and farm succession, access to land, seeds, cooperation, food systems, etc.);
- shared the idea of the Peasant University at the European level (“FarmErasmus”).
Now the next step is to move forward! Because, with all due modesty, this project may well be the missing piece needed to make the agricultural and food transition a reality in France and across Europe!
Rebuilding the commons
The mission of the Peasant University is still being written. But we can already say that its objective is to encourage the emergence of agricultural and cultural models that respect the living world, ecosystems and territories, by:
- supporting peasant farming, farm succession and local food systems;
- strengthening democratic participation, citizen involvement, local cooperation and territorial sovereignty;
- transforming the way we inhabit our territories, listening to the needs of the living world as well as communities, supporting biodiversity and ecosystem restoration, while recognising resource depletion, widespread pollution and climate change;
- creating networks, encouraging dialogue and building on experiences from the local to the global level, notably through a FarmErasmus programme that we could develop.
Ultimately, what we are doing with the Peasant University goes far beyond agriculture alone. We are working to rebuild the commons. We are restoring meaning to collective action. And perhaps that is the true purpose of the Peasant University: to collectively reclaim our capacity to shape our territories and our future.
Thierry Lohr is a local councillor for Plessé, France, and partner of the Rural Resilience project.
More
Rural Resilience Gathering | Knowledge is the Power to Shape our Rural Futures Together
Marburg Gathering | Building Bridges for Future-Proof Food Systems
Cultivating The Future Together – ARC’s Rural Resilience Gathering in France
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