Latest from key partners Archives - Agricultural and Rural Convention

Learning from Germany’s Decades of Public Biogas Support

February 13, 2026 Sophie Scherger

Ireland, Spain and Poland are among a number of Member States now looking to biogas to support the transition to sustainable energy systems. But is investing in biogas infrastructure a beneficial use of public funds? In new research, Sophie Scherger of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy lays out the lessons that can be learned from an early adopter of biogas: Germany. Op-ed by Sophie Scherger. […]

Rural Resilience Gathering | Knowledge is the Power to Shape our Rural Futures Together

December 19, 2025 Louise Kelleher

We congregated on the last weekend in November, together with participants from 12 European countries and beyond, for our Rural Resilience Gathering 2025. We took home new perspectives, tools and best practices, a richer vision of the mosaic of rural Europe – and a full tank of hope: that we can shape our agroecological future in our communities. Report by Louise Kelleher and Pauline Petit. […]

Ireland | Feeding Ourselves, breaking new ground for the local food movement

December 19, 2025 Oliver Moore

Every year the Feeding Ourselves movement joins more of the dots in the local food ecosystem. This year especially it has broken new ground – digging into Ireland’s difficult colonial past and building bridges to a more resilient future by consolidating ties with unlikely partners and anchor institutions. To give us a taste of where the movement is at, Oliver Moore reports from Ireland. […]

European Days of Action 2025 – United for Food Justice

November 13, 2025 ARC

550 voices, 28 countries, one demand: Food Justice. The European Days of Action, this year in its eighth edition, put a spotlight on the need to shift power away from corporations and towards people, so everyone can access healthy, affordable, culturally appropriate food, grown in ways that protect farmers, workers, and the planet. Photo story by Pauline Naterstad and Lina Hartwig of Good Food Good Farming. […]

European Rural Parliament 2025 — Redefining Rurality in the Scottish Highlands

October 31, 2025 Theona Morrison

On October 20-23, over 400 rural delegates from over 40 European countries gathered in Inverurie in the north-east of Scotland for the 6th European Rural Parliament (ERP). It isn’t that communities lack capacity for change; they lack the support to deliver. This is the message behind the Inverurie Declaration, a call for systemic change from the delegates that asks not for help but for partnership from European, national and regional authorities. Theona L Morrison, Chair of Scottish Rural Action, shares her reflections on the 6th ERP. […]

France | Not Perfect, But Possible – Seeing is Believing at Institut de Tramayes

October 1, 2025 Ashley Parsons

In the run-up to this November’s Rural Resilience Gathering, we took a trip to the Institut de Tramayes: a centre for learning by doing, that seeks to counteract the fragmentation of intellectual knowledge and manual know-how and cultivate “whole human beings”. More than a study trip, it was a moment to reflect on what it means to build a learning space that is rooted in rural realities and ambitions. What could we learn from Tramayes that could help build a University Paysanne in Plessé, and beyond? Report by Ashley Parsons. […]

Rise for Food Justice – Join the European Days of Action 2025!

September 23, 2025 ARC

October is just around the corner – and so are the European Days of Action! Since 2018, the #GoodFoodGoodFarming movement has united thousands across Europe to demand just food systems. This year’s focus is Food Justice: recognising food as a human right, not just a commodity. Today’s system puts profit before people, but this October citizens can take action and call on EU leaders to ensure safe, healthy and affordable food for all. Good Food Good Farming tells us more. […]

European Rural Parliament 2025 — Rural Community Solutions to Global Challenges

September 8, 2025 ARC

This October 20-23, over 400 rural delegates from across Europe will gather in the north-east of Scotland for the 6th European Rural Parliament (ERP), a participative democratic assembly that shines a spotlight on the power of rural communities to respond to global crises. With the theme “Strength from Opportunity: Rural Community Solutions to Global Challenges”, this year’s ERP will highlight how rural and island people, places, and practices not only bear the brunt of climate, demographic, and political shifts but also offer transformative responses rooted in solidarity, sustainability, and place-based knowledge. […]

Op-Ed | From Declaration to Action – Rethinking Rural Power in EU Policymaking

July 8, 2025 Edina Ocsko

Rural voices still seem to go unheard in EU policymaking. The Rural Pact Coordination Group proposes a new tool for rural stakeholders to take the power back: the Declaration on the Future of Rural Areas and Rural Development Policy in the European Union. After a recent test drive, Edina Ocsko unpacks why rural voices struggle to shape policy and identifies some concrete next steps. Op-ed by Edina Ocsko. […]

Fund the Future of Food & Farming: A United Call from Across Europe

June 11, 2025 ARC

The Good Food Good Farming (GFGF) movement is in Brussels with a clear message from 15 countries: the EU must stop enabling industrial agriculture and instead support a just agroecological transition. As decision-makers decide the future of EU funding, GFGF present a new position paper and grassroots demands as part of a united EU-wide call to reform the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). […]

The Food Sovereignty Scandal Made in France

March 5, 2025 ARC

France has more than enough land to feed its inhabitants. Yet almost half of French farmland serves the global export trade. Food sovereignty will remain a pipe dream as long as the absurd globalised food system continues to hold sway, says a new report by Terre de Liens. The Rural Resilience project reports from the launch event in Paris. […]

Dark Matter – Phasing Peat Out Of Horticulture

March 4, 2025 Oliver Moore

It’s a little known fact outside the growing community: peat is ubiquitous in producing the fruits and vegetables we eat. Organic and conventional systems alike rely on peat for plant propagation. This is a climate and biodiversity disaster, and alternatives have so far been thin on the ground. How is the horticulture industry dealing with the peat conundrum? Oliver Moore reports. […]

How Has The CAP’s Green Architecture Changed Around Europe?

February 24, 2025 ARC

The CAP has shapeshifted significantly thanks to a series of exemptions and, crucially, a fundamental change in its regulation in 2024. But how have these changes impacted the green architecture of the policy? Here we present a collaborative article on the changes, in particular for the ‘good agricultural and environmental conditionalities’ on peatland and wetlands (GAEC 2) and on space for nature (GAEC 8). National environmental and agricultural coalitions from around Europe – from Poland, Ireland, Czechia, France, Italy, Spain and Bulgaria – have all fed their insights into this article. […]

Genetic Engineering and Generative AI: An Explosive Mix

February 4, 2025 Benedikt Haerlin

The field of plant biotechnology is undergoing a profound transformation. The rise of generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools is fundamentally reshaping the way genetic engineering is conducted. AI-driven genetic engineering may be vulnerable to well-known limitations of AI, such as the black box effect, hallucinations and data errors, raising concerns that plants with undesirable traits could be engineered and released into the environment. How should the EU respond? Benny Haerlin and Franziska Achterberg of Save our Seeds summarise findings of the organisation’s report When Chatbots Breed New Plant Varieties. […]

LEADER: Where It Came From, What’s Still In It

December 17, 2024 Robert Lukesch

As part of the transnational LEADER project “Our Common Future” in which LEADER networks came together to conceptualise the future of the LEADER approach, Robert Lukesch brings us a broad retrospective on the wider context from which LEADER emerged, the evolution along its trajectory through six budget periods, and some conclusive thoughts about its future destiny. […]