Germany Archives - Agricultural and Rural Convention

Germany | Legal win for a collective land purchase makes a couple’s farming dream come true

May 29, 2026 ARC

What began as a small French-fries stand and a desire to grow their own potatoes brought two young farmers into the heart of one of Europe’s most pressing agricultural challenges: access to land. Since founding their organic farm near Münster, David Büchler and Sarah Hoffmann have followed a path familiar to many new entrants, marked by long searches and uncertain opportunities. But a collective purchase model made long-term security possible, after a legal case that finally culminated in a win. By Christine Etienne. […]

Sitting with our contradictions – Learning to reconnect with nature and find peace as humans

May 7, 2026 Louise Kelleher

A farm can be a place for the kind of learning that’s hard to find in educational institutions. Combining her work in both farming and networking with Education for Sustainable Development, Ann Marie Weber explores how collaboration among regional actors and transformative learning processes can drive structural change toward sustainable food systems. She runs a small farm near Marburg (Hesse, Germany), where she grows vegetables to make hot sauce, chutneys and other preserves – not for market, but to help create a space for people to connect with their own agency, food and nature. In conversation with Louise Kelleher. […]

Visit from India: Natural Farming, A Women’s Agricultural Revolution of Diversity

February 13, 2026 ARC

India’s Andhra Pradesh Community Managed Natural Farming (APCNF) initiative is arguably the world’s largest and fastest-growing agroecological movement. It is based on cultivating diversity, the targeted stimulation of the soil microbiome without the use of chemicals or genetic engineering, and solidarity among the women of the participating communities. Two young women farmers from the movement are touring Europe to share their natural farming approach. […]

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. […]

Germany | Minding our Mental Health – “Take a closer look when others stumble”

January 13, 2026 Hannes Lorenzen

Minding mental health is an ever increasing challenge for rural communities, and especially farmers. It’s a crisis exacerbated by precarious and political uncertainty, and tied up with questions of generational renewal on farms. To learn more about the situation on the ground, the services available, and what rural communities can do, Hannes Lorenzen spoke to Regina Eichinger-Schönberger, a health counsellor in Germany who specialises in suicide prevention in the green sector. […]

Op-Ed | Farmland Sees the Less Sunny Side of Germany’s Solar Transition

September 16, 2025 ARC

Germany’s energy transition is affecting its land market, driving investment and increasing concentration of land ownership. In this op-ed, Anne Neuber of Netzwerk Flächensicherung, an alliance working to secure land for ecological, regional and peasant agriculture in Germany, explores these dynamics and calls for stronger regulation to ensure solar expansion works in harmony with farming and environmental priorities. […]

The Rise of a New Grain Alliance – Germany’s Free Bakers Sow the Seeds of Change

July 9, 2025 Hannes Lorenzen

A new idea is brewing in Germany, with the first seeds sown of a new alliance along the food value chain for cereals and legumes. ARC2020’s President Hannes Lorenzen reports on how farmers, bakers, seed savers, researchers, and grain breeders are coming together with a shared vision […]

From Protests & Polarisation to Weaving Common Ground – A Year of Rural Resilience

February 5, 2025 ARC

We invite you to retrace with us the Rural Resilience project journey in 2024. Together we look back on a year that took us from rage and rollbacks to a European triangle of rural action. […]

WHES | “We Must Continue” – Determined Farmers & Friends Will March On

January 30, 2025 Claudia Schievelbein

As Germany’s election season plays out, agriculture and environmental issues are notably absent from campaign agendas. Nonetheless, at Berlin’s annual Wir haben es satt protest, farmers and activists marched – without the usual tractors – demanding a food system that protects the climate, nature, animal welfare and rural communities. Hours earlier, the alliance held a final meeting with outgoing Agriculture Minister Cem Özdemir. Claudia Schievelbein reports. […]

Hand in Hand for the Future of Farming – Call For Courage at #WHES25

January 24, 2025 ARC

At this year’s Wir haben es satt! Demonstration in Berlin, thousands of farmers, activists and consumers gathered in front of the Reichstag to demand bold action on agri-food policy, urging the next government to deliver fair prices, support for agroecological farming and decisive climate action ahead of a pivotal federal election. […]

Who Is Actually Profiting Here? – Uniting for Common Good at #WHES25

January 17, 2025 ARC

On Saturday January 18th, demonstrators in Berlin will take to the streets to say: “We are fed up with agri-industry!”. Ahead of the 15th annual Wir haben es satt! demo, Claudia Schievelbein of the Bauernstimme and AbL, reflects on the Weaving Common Ground gathering held in Poland last November, transition fatigue in agriculture and the need for better understanding between rural and urban areas. […]

The Power of Three – A Weimar triangle for rural Europe

December 12, 2024 ARC

Geopolitics, geography and geometry can sometimes come together as a force for good. A gathering of people from European rural and urban civil society in the Polish village of Grzybów was one such moment. The event, which was spearheaded by ARC2020 and took place at the end of November, weaved together rural, urban, farming and EU perspectives to find a common thread towards a fairer, more sustainable farming and food system. […]

Weaving Common Ground – European Triangle for Rural Action

November 25, 2024 ARC

On 28 November – 1 December, in the rural village of Grzybów, Poland, ARC2020 is co-organising a European gathering of sustainable rural initiatives to take stock of a new political situation of Europe and to look into possibilities of cooperation: “Weaving Common Ground” between rural and urban people. In collaboration with our local hosts, the Ecological Folk High School and Ziarno association, the gathering will conclude a three-year cooperation of people in rural France, Germany and Poland. […]

Germany | To Reduce Pesticides, Start with Nutrient Management

September 30, 2024 Andrea Beste

NGOs and governmental institutions have many proposals for approaches to pesticide reduction in Europe. Almost all exclude nutrient management. But if we want to reduce pesticides, that is where we need to start, argues Andrea Beste. […]

Letter from Christiansen Farm – Breeding Time

August 26, 2024 Hannes Lorenzen

Time waits for nobody – but it seems to travel quickly or slowly depending on circumstance. Organic breeding techniques have a different relationship to time and place than genetic engineering methods; other aspects of being in a market economy and of using specialised machinery have their own relationships to time too. Here, Hannes Lorenzen talks with organic plant breeders in Christiansen organic farm, up in Schleswig-Holstein, in the far north of Germany and what they do and why they do it. […]