Rural Resilience project Archives - Agricultural and Rural Convention

Rural Resilience Gathering | Knowledge is the Power to Shape our Rural Futures Together

December 19, 2025 Louise Kelleher

We congregated on the last weekend in November, together with participants from 12 European countries and beyond, for our Rural Resilience Gathering 2025. We took home new perspectives, tools and best practices, a richer vision of the mosaic of rural Europe – and a full tank of hope: that we can shape our agroecological future in our communities. Report by Louise Kelleher and Pauline Petit. […]

Ireland | Feeding Ourselves, breaking new ground for the local food movement

December 19, 2025 Oliver Moore

Every year the Feeding Ourselves movement joins more of the dots in the local food ecosystem. This year especially it has broken new ground – digging into Ireland’s difficult colonial past and building bridges to a more resilient future by consolidating ties with unlikely partners and anchor institutions. To give us a taste of where the movement is at, Oliver Moore reports from Ireland. […]

Podcast | Fields of Power, Episode 4: Land & Democracy

December 15, 2025 Péter József Bori

In the final episode of Fields of Power, we step back from the land grabbing cases we’ve traced across Hungary and ask a deeper question: what does land have to do with democracy? Fields of Power is a four-part podcast series is created by Ian M. Cook, Péter József Bori and Noémi Gonda. […]

Podcast | Fields of Power, Episode 3: Fear and Loathing in Hungary

December 8, 2025 Péter József Bori

In episode 3 of the “Fields of Power” podcast series, we head out onto Hungary’s great plains in search of people living through the country’s land battles. What we find is a landscape marked not just by farmers without land, but by fear. By Ian M. Cook, Péter József Bori and Noémi Gonda. […]

Podcast | Fields of Power, Episode 2: The Land Grab Chronicles

December 1, 2025 Péter József Bori

Here is episode 2! “The Land Grab Chronicles” moves from the aisles of a Hungarian supermarket into the hidden machinery of a political-economic system where land, food, and power are tightly intertwined. “Fields of Power” is a four-part podcast series is created by Ian M. Cook, Péter József Bori and Noémi Gonda. […]

Podcast | Fields of Power, Episode 1: Of Farms & Fortune

November 24, 2025 Péter József Bori

“Fields of Power” is a serial podcast that tells the story of how control over land in Hungary became a crucial terrain for consolidating Prime Minister Orbán’s regime’s authoritarian grip on power. At the heart of “Fields of Power” is a central question: how does land ownership shape democracy? Or even more urgently: how does the loss of land ownership by farmers help fuel the rise of illiberal, right-wing and authoritarian politics? Here is “Of Farms & Fortune”, the first in a four-part series created by Ian M. Cook, Péter József Bori and Noémi Gonda. […]

European Days of Action 2025 – United for Food Justice

November 13, 2025 ARC

550 voices, 28 countries, one demand: Food Justice. The European Days of Action, this year in its eighth edition, put a spotlight on the need to shift power away from corporations and towards people, so everyone can access healthy, affordable, culturally appropriate food, grown in ways that protect farmers, workers, and the planet. Photo story by Pauline Naterstad and Lina Hartwig of Good Food Good Farming. […]

Letter From The Farm | Acorn, The Permitted Fruit

November 10, 2025 Freixo do Meio Users Cooperative

Today is World Acorn Day, and what better way to celebrate than with a love letter to acorns, an unsung superfood! We are back on the Montado do Freixo do Meio in Portugal, where the rich traditions of acorn eating are nourishing food sovereignty at local scale. Letter by Alfredo Sendim and Ana Vasconcelos. […]

“A Joyful Revolution” – Voices from the Agroecology Europe Forum 2025

November 7, 2025 Robin Llewellyn

Europe’s food and farming sectors may be under strain from policies obsessed with a (biased) competitiveness, but a growing movement is pushing back. The Agroecology Europe Forum held in Malmö, Sweden on 2-4 October 2025, showcased the strength of agroecology as both resistance and science, advancing resilience, decolonialism, and justice across rural landscapes. Robin Llewellyn of Agroecology Europe has more. […]

Passing the Pitchfork – Inside the EU’s new plan to get young farmers in our fields

November 3, 2025 Ashley Parsons

The EU’s strategy for generational renewal, presented on Tuesday 21 October, lays out ambitious plans to double the share of young farmers in Europe by 2040. Here’s what it promises, what’s missing, and what civil society actors are saying. By Ashley Parsons, Louise Kelleher and Natasha Foote. […]

European Rural Parliament 2025 — Redefining Rurality in the Scottish Highlands

October 31, 2025 Theona Morrison

On October 20-23, over 400 rural delegates from over 40 European countries gathered in Inverurie in the north-east of Scotland for the 6th European Rural Parliament (ERP). It isn’t that communities lack capacity for change; they lack the support to deliver. This is the message behind the Inverurie Declaration, a call for systemic change from the delegates that asks not for help but for partnership from European, national and regional authorities. Theona L Morrison, Chair of Scottish Rural Action, shares her reflections on the 6th ERP. […]

EU Budget: How Brussels’ New Plans Put Regions Out to Pasture

October 21, 2025 Natasha Foote

Brussels is still sifting through the wreckage of the budget bombshell the European Commission dropped in July. As the dust settles, one question looms large: who wins, and who’s left behind? In this ARC2020 mini-series, we unpack the ripple effects — and collateral damage — of the EU’s radical budget proposal, starting with the regions that risk being sidelined. […]

Planting Seeds of Quiet Agroecological Resistance in South Africa’s Fields

October 10, 2025 Natasha Foote

A quiet rebellion is taking root in rural South Africa. Led by women armed not with tractors or chemicals, but with seeds, soil, and agroecological knowledge, this movement rejects the export-led farming model that has long dictated what they grow and how they live. This agroecological resistance is feeding bellies and a growing rural resilience, one food garden at a time. Letter from their farms by Natasha Foote. […]

Spain | Participatory Water Governance – A New Model for Regional CAP Implementation?

October 10, 2025 Irene Perez

In a time of environmental regulation backsliding in agriculture, how can grassroots, participatory processes enable farmers, environmentalists, and other local stakeholders to effectively shape policy? Here, we dig deeper into a case study: the Social Water Roundtable of Andalusia (MSA), which works to shape regional water governance in agriculture through multi-stakeholder dialogue. Report by Irene Perez. […]

France | Not Perfect, But Possible – Seeing is Believing at Institut de Tramayes

October 1, 2025 Ashley Parsons

In the run-up to this November’s Rural Resilience Gathering, we took a trip to the Institut de Tramayes: a centre for learning by doing, that seeks to counteract the fragmentation of intellectual knowledge and manual know-how and cultivate “whole human beings”. More than a study trip, it was a moment to reflect on what it means to build a learning space that is rooted in rural realities and ambitions. What could we learn from Tramayes that could help build a University Paysanne in Plessé, and beyond? Report by Ashley Parsons. […]