In Bonn, real people and important ideas are locked out. And so-called Climate Smart Agriculture – brainchild of the fertilizer industry – and broad generalities define the terrain. Pavlos Georgiadis is in Bonn, and he gives us this report. […]
Securing land for agroecology gets a helping hand with the launch of a new website. Eco Ruralis report. […]
In an exciting development, the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food) has adopted a set of 10 principles to guide the transition to sustainable food systems. […]
By Paula Dragomir – Agrobiodiversity campaign assistant, Eco Ruralis On 24th-26th of September 2015, Eco Ruralis association participated in “Sow your resistance!” an international event in Lescar-Pau, France, which celebrated peasant seeds from all around the world. This event gathered more than 400 people from civil society movements and local NGO’s from Europe, Africa, South America and Asia. The event was co-organized by the Emmaus community of Lescar-Pau, the French network of peasant seeds Réseau Semences Paysannes and the French NGO for agricultural and social projects BEDE. The innovating, semi-autonomous village of Lescar-Pau – which produces 60% of the food needed by its 140 inhabitants – an extraordinary settlement and inspiring location for conceiving a different and better world. The various participants were involved in discussions, workshops, visits and debates. The program was rich and ambitious. The main demands were for: – Recognition of the indispensable past, present and future contribution of farmers and gardeners to the selection, conservation and renewal of agricultural biodiversity; – Respect and guarantee of the right of farmers to reuse, exchange […]
By Attila Szocs, Eco Ruralis Land Rights Campaigner Land grabbing in Romania is reaching a blatant level but mobilisation against it is scaling up too. On the 26-27th of September, 2015, Eco Ruralis hosted in Cluj Napoca the first meeting of a newly established Working Group on the Right to Land. During the gathering, Eco Ruralis members and supporters debated important land related problems faced by peasants and agroecological food producers: lack of transparency behind large land acquisitions, equitable access to land for young and future farmers and land policies oriented towards land concentration. The meeting specified future collaboration by the group in order to intervene on the issue of land grabbing and fair access to land in Romania. Defining land grabbing generated an interesting debate inside the group. Several criteria were raised, taking into consideration quantitative and qualitative indicators of what is a land grab. First of all, we noted the duality of the Romanian countryside, where more than half of the available lands are cultivated by small farmers, while the other part is controlled by companies and other actors. This obviously opens up […]
The UK’s Growing Livelihoods scheme to foster smaller-scale food growing has added a further five projects to the pilot phase it launched last year. The new arrivals in the Growing Livelihoods family are Bristol’s Beacon Farms, the Cwm Harry Cultivate group in south Wales, Cloughmills Community Action Team in Northern Ireland, the Cornish Tamar Grow Local group and Falkland Small Growers in Fife. The Tamar Grow Local group will convert an agricultural building into a shared packhouse, meeting space and office. This will extend the existing support for new market gardeners, who will be able to work together and establish new routes to market. With the Falkland Estate earning organic certification in May this year, two new businesses have been set up to establish a network of local growers. Falkland Kitchen Farm and Meadowsweet Organics are part of a plan to share equipment and services such as marketing organic crops. Cloughmills Community Action Team is building a geodesic dome, like the Eden Project, in which hydroponic salad crops will be grown, alongside mushrooms raised on […]
Agroforestry – saving the world with meat and sport | ARC2020 […]
Despite restrictions, civil society is helping people use traditional seeds. Eco Ruralis report from Romania. […]
Despite restrictions, 95% of producers who sell at markets use traditional seeds, a Romanian Market Study has found. […]
Written By: Derek Freitas – Food Chains Campaign Coordinator for Eco Ruralis In February of this year, a new international alliance of 16 civil society organizations around Europe joined forces to tackle issues related to climate and agroecology, markets and food chains, land and water, seeds and bioeconomy. The alliance, Hands on the Land for Food Sovereignty (HOTL 4 FS), has launched its campaign and will work on these issues for the next 3 years. Eco Ruralis, European Coordination Via Campesina (ECVC) and the Transnational Institute (TNI) are among the partners which includes “peasants and social movements, development and environmental NGOs, human rights organisations and research activists. We aim to raise awareness on the use and governance of land, water and other natural resources and its effects on the realisation of the right to food and food sovereignty. Through evidence-based research and material, public events and meetings, trainings, education and advocacy work, the campaign engages EU citizens, media, journalists, NGO practitioners, social activists, educators, students, politicians, policy and decision makers to take action for food […]
The word Bostan means garden near your house, where you grow your daily food. And this is what people like to do in Turkey, even when they live in a city of millions – like Istanbul. […]
Guest post on Food as a Commons by Jose Luis Vivero Pol. […]
by Gilles Billen, Luis Lassaletta and Josette Garnier Globalisation is not only a matter of clothing and mobile phones. Long-distance worldwide shipping of food commodities has also increased tremendously over the last few decades. Lassaletta et al.(2014) estimate that one-third of all proteins (a proxy for the nutritive potential of foodstuffs) produced globally are redistributed through international trade. Thus a recent study in France shows that the total volume of long distance commercial exchanges of food commodities, mostly originating from far away, account for over twice the national agricultural production (Le Noé et al., submitted). However, the positive value of a globalised food supply is being actively questioned. In industrialised countries, a citizens’ movement has arisen, sometimes supported by local public authorities, seeking to promote a local food supply. This movement aims to reclaim control of nutrition, re-create social links often destroyed by the extent of mass distribution, and develop the local economy. Developing countries are also attempting to strengthen their local food supply and recover part of their food sovereignty lost by decades of […]
Czech Republic is the European Union country with the highest share of arable land, around 38% of its surface. Despite this fact, recent trends give clear evidence for an enormous decrease of agricultural land due to the expansion of urbanization and industrialization plans across the country. However the reformed Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the European Union (EU) could potentially push Czech Republic to promote an environmentally and socially sustainable agriculture. The process of land degradation in Czech Republic has its roots in the agricultural land expropriations of the 1950s done by the communist regime. During that time agricultural policy focused mostly on the large-scale consolidation of farmlands as well as on highly intensive methods of production through the use of agrochemicals without consideration of potential environmental risks. In light of the „Velvet revolution“ in 1989 the political and economic changes gave rise various agricultural currents, from agroindustry to organic farming. Already in 1990 the Ministry for Agriculture established its own department for „alternative agriculture“, handing out Governmental support in form of direct subsidies to […]
Another way to do food is possible. And its here. Friends of the Earth Europe’s “Eating from the Farm – the social, environmental, and economic benefits of local food systems” show us inspirational examples of where you can shake the hand that feeds you, all around Europe. This new publication explores the many myriad benefits of short food supply chains, and how they function in few countries in the EU. It “features five case studies which illustrate different ways in which communities are finding more sustainable ways to produce and consume food with benefits for all” FOEE say about the publication . They continue “The methods vary, but the outcomes are the same: control of the food system is being taken back by small-scale, sustainable farms and food enterprises from large-scale industrial businesses that dominate the market today putting profit ahead of well being for people and planet.” The milestone of more urban than rural dwellers reached globally as long ago as 2007. This, coupled with a the twin demands of the sustainable use of resources and […]
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