Undaunted by the challenge of growing grapes in rainy England, the family-run Aldwick Estate turned to wine production as a way to improve soil health. Ursula Billington spoke to the wine growers about fungicides, inspiration from France, and the future of wine-making in the UK. […]
As the pandemic collides with inequality and the ecological emergencies, fresh approaches to building resilient local food economies are emerging. Innovative communities are experimenting with ways to shorten, amplify and democratise supply chains. ARC2020, Cultivate and Forum Synergies came together to organise a webinar where pioneering community-led initiatives operating at the regional level, with the aim of encouraging the replication, scaling up and scaling across of these approaches. […]
Running since 2011, Wir Haben Es Satt (WHES) has become Europe’s biggest gathering against industrial farming and for a fair and agroecological and food systems transformation. 2021 will see a unique iteration of WHES, with many activities happening digitally. With much of the action online, this also means that people all over the world can now join in. Here we introduce a core part of WHES, Soup & Talk 2021, which ARC2020 is helping coordinate. […]
Join us on December 9th at 17:00 CET for a participatory web conference on ‘Local Food – Reimagining Regional Responses’. In partnership with Forum Synergies and Cultivate, ARC2020 is co-organising this online event which will present collaborative approaches to building rural resilience, and consider how we can progress agri-food movements from the local level to the regional. […]
Livestock farmers Jen and Andy of Fernhill Farm in Somerset, England have been practicing regenerative agriculture since before they had a name for it. Twenty years ago their “extensive nomadic ways” were dismissed as too traditional; now it’s clear these pioneers of sustainable agroecology were ahead of their time. Ursula Billington tells us more. […]
We’re back on Chiara’s forest farm at the foot of the Italian Alps, where there’s much to be grateful for. Chiara updates us on an abundant shiitake harvest, her mushroom business going wild, and finding solace in fungi as “invisible friends”. […]
Both academic and policy debates tend to focus on how to further intensify agricultural landscapes to spare natural lands for natural biodiversity conservation and carbon sequestration. This Brief from IDDRI elaborates on a literature review of recent publications to argue that equal attention should be paid to the protection and restoration of biodiversity within agricultural landscapes, most notably for the role it plays as a critical production factor. […]
On Friday 09 October 2020, the Commission finally put forward four flagship eco-schemes for the CAP Strategic Plans Regulation. What has been proposed, and what are the considerations with each of these potential eco-schemes? […]
Seeds4All is dedicated to seed diversity, and it aims to “give visibility to all European organisations that collect, enrich, produce, disseminate and sustainably use traditional and new varieties of seeds belonging to the public domain, freely reproducible and not genetically modified.” […]
The lack of funds by international donors and European countries towards agroecology is a blocking factor for the transformation needed in our food systems. […]
A critical new book released today (24th September) by United Nations’ World Agriculture Report (IAASTD) members calls for an accelerated transformation of our food systems. The authors, including ARC2020’s Benny Haerlin, point to the need for a paradigm shift in the perception of the global food system, incorporating agroecology. Here we feature an op-ed by Katharine Earley. […]
A group of EIPs – European Innovation Partnerships – has come together in Ireland to argue the case for this environmentally engaged form of farming. So what’s next – will some of the methods and approaches used in these EIPs become templates for other farming regions in Ireland, or for the design of CAP schemes, or for more market-orientated approaches such as PDO and PGI? Here we publish a joint letter by a number of EIPs from Ireland to help stimulate this debate. […]
Brittany’s sustainable farmers have breathed a collective sigh of relief as further funding is secured for the agroecological transition. But while the region makes the most of CAP Pillar 2, the French state continues to prop up factory farms with Pillar 1. Louise Kelleher has more. […]
How can grassroots organisations tackle the issue of land access? What strategies and legal tools are available to them, and what real-life examples have worked? In this excerpt from the comprehensive toolkit recently published by Nyéléni Europe and Central Asia platform for Food Sovereignty, the authors note that despite the challenges, resistance is fertile – and present a range of tools that land activists can use to fight for a fairer world. […]
Four innovative and committed agroecology initiatives showed how they stepped up in times of Covid19 at a webinar organised by Forum Synergies and ARC2020 last week. And dozens, from all over Europe and beyond, got involved in the conversation. Alison Brogan tells us about this event which provided a moment to reflect, some key contemporary learnings, and which sowed the seeds of further action. […]
Agricultural and Rural Convention