Latest from the ARC network Archives - Agricultural and Rural Convention

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 | “Non-Productive Trees” – Still A Bizarre Concept

July 16, 2025 Gerry Lawson

With Europe’s forests under more pressure than ever to remove carbon and provide all manner of ecosystem services, is there such a thing as a non-productive tree? And what exactly is a high diversity landscape feature? In the view of the European Agroforestry Federation, the European Commission should use more precise terminology, notably in the Nature Restoration Regulation. Op-ed by Gerry Lawson. […]

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). […]

Western Balkans | 20 Years Standing For Cross-Border Cooperation

May 23, 2025 Hannes Lorenzen

An unusual political creature celebrates twenty years of cooperation between a wide range of committed government officials, rural and agricultural stakeholders and experts and rural communities and activists. Hannes Lorenzen spoke with Boban Ilic, co-initiator and Secretary General of the Standing Working Group on Regional Rural Development in South Eastern Europe, at the 20-year anniversary gathering in Ohrid, North Macedonia. […]

Polish Rural Forum Takes Action For A Broad Rural Alliance

May 21, 2025 Hannes Lorenzen

The Polish Rural Parliament launched earlier this month, holding its inaugural gathering at the European Congress on Rural Renewal and Development organised by the Polish EU Presidency on May 8-10 2025. What does this mean for the rural movement in Poland? Below we bring you an interview with its co-initiators, Ryszard Kamiński (Polish Rural Forum) and Szymon Migoń (Polish Rural Youth Union). But first, Hannes Lorenzen reports from the Congress in Poznan. […]

Op Ed | Big Ag Pushes Lawmakers to Roll Back Consumer Rights

May 7, 2025 Franziska Achterberg

In advance of the first trilogue meeting on “new genomic techniques” that took place this week, the industry launched a statement against GMO labelling. Only the Parliament, not the Council nor the Commission, want consumer labelling of new GM products. Op-ed by Franziska Achterberg, Head of Policy and Advocacy at Save Our Seeds. […]

Let’s Liberate Diversity Forum 2025 – Registration Now Open!

April 4, 2025 Adèle Pautrat

From September 4th to 6th, the European Coordination Let’s Liberate Diversity will host its 14th forum in Luxembourg. The Forum will focus on food sovereignty, seed autonomy, and agricultural resilience. Bringing together a dynamic network of farmers, seed savers, researchers, and activists, this international gathering will provide a platform for reflection on strategic opportunities and the exchange of ideas for collective action. […]

Portugal | Regenerative Heritage Grains – From Soil To Bread

April 2, 2025 Adèle Pautrat

Where to find heritage grains likely to thrive in a Portuguese climate and soil conditions? José da Camara Ruas tells us about his farming project in the Alentejo region in south Portugal, and his journey through diversification—from ancient grains and species mixtures to agroforestry and the introduction of animals. By Adèle Pautrat for the Seeds4All project. […]

Poland And Denmark Have An Opportunity To Shape EU Agriculture, If Only They Seize It

April 1, 2025 ARC

The Commission has published “A Vision for Agriculture and Food”, where it scales back the green ambitions of the Farm-to-Fork strategy, passing the buck to Member States to implement sufficient measures to meet EU climate goals. However, the future of EU agriculture will also be shaped by negotiations on several crucial files—including a new budget, a 2040 climate target and CAP reform. The 2025 Polish and Danish EU presidencies will help to set the pace and scope of agricultural policies for years to come. Op-ed by Simone Højte, Emmanuel Molding Nielsen, Adrianna Wrona and Johannes Flatz. […]

Letter From A Future Farmer | Living Alternatives

March 28, 2025 Jessica Girardi

Can principles of local action, mutual aid and intergenerational cohesion help to revive rural areas? Jessica Girardi immersed herself in this question during a month-long Forum Synergies scholarship hosted by the Porto di Terra collective in Sicily in August-September 2024. She found living proof that rural areas can be dynamic, progressive and experimental. Letter by Jessica Girardi. […]

Scapegoating Green NGOs – The dangerous distraction of a corporate agenda

March 12, 2025 ARC

Green NGOs fight for the interests of civil society, but this is a tough fight when they have very limited resources to defend them compared to the agribusiness lobby. The EU’s LIFE Programme is a crucial funding instrument. Targeting of LIFE funding isn’t just an attack on NGOs; it strikes at the core of democracy and clears the way for corporate greed to wreak even greater havoc on our planet, argues Giulia Riedo of WWF in this op-ed. […]

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. […]

Empowering Cities: The Missing Link in Europe’s Sustainable Food Future

November 21, 2024 ARC

Europe’s mounting crises present an opportunity to redesign our food systems. We need a comprehensive food policy framework that ensures resilience, sustainability and inclusivity – and promotes cooperation over competition. The new EU commission must harness the collective power of cities, rural communities and European policymakers. Op-ed by Anna Scavuzzo, Vice Mayor of Milan and David Dessers, Deputy Mayor of Leuven. […]