Latest from EU Member States

Letter From The Farm | Restoring Nature, Improving Productivity

We’re back with Shane Casey in The Burren, where it’s been a good Spring. Family and farm are thriving. For Shane, nature conservation and productivity go hand in hand. As the debate rages around the EU Nature Restoration Law, he is sympathetic to the farmers who are being asked to undo a lifetime of ‘improvements’ to make space for nature. […]

Latest from key partners

Reclaiming the Place of Agrobiodiversity in the Conservation and Food Debates

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. […]

Latest from EU Member States

Ireland | EIPs make the case for a better CAP

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.  […]

Main stories

Letter From the Farm – of Seeds and not Reseeding

Madeline McKeever has been farming in west Cork, on the edge of the Atlantic, since 1999. First in dairy and cheese making, then beef, and now mostly selling organic vegetable seeds. Madeline has seen a lot – like the return of mushrooms, white clover, and dozens of plants in her unploughed sward. […]

Latest from EU Member States

Less is More: Upland Farming Economics

A new report using economic research from 46 farms aims to improve understanding of the underlying economics of upland farming, and how this can be improved to both benefit the environment and increase the financial resilience of these businesses. […]