Rural Resilience project Archives - Agricultural and Rural Convention

The EU’s Public Plate – An Opportunity for Food System Transformation

June 18, 2025 ARC

Public procurement of food in the EU is worth billions annually – money that could help deliver healthy meals in schools, hospitals and nursing homes, while supporting sustainable agriculture, fair incomes for farmers and workers’ rights. As the EU prepares to revise its procurement directives, this op-ed by ICLEI’s Jean-Marc Louvin asks why the potential of sustainable food procurement is still untapped – even as many local and regional governments are already demonstrating what’s possible […]

EU Throws The Wolf To The Wolves

June 2, 2025 Oliver Moore

Following votes at both Council and in Parliament, the status of the wolf in Europe is being downgraded from “strictly protected” to “protected”. So what’s happened to conservation of this apex predator – and why? Oliver Moore and Ashley Parsons report. […]

Letter From The Farm | Growing Food, Family, And Community

May 30, 2025 Brindusa Birhala

After a long break, we are happy to be back with Brîndușa Bîrhala on her homestead in the west of Romania, where she has been busy growing and nurturing farm and family. Yet she remains as keen as ever to share agroecological experiences and opportunities. Letter by Brîndușa Bîrhala. […]

Western Balkans | 20 Years Standing For Cross-Border Cooperation

May 23, 2025 Hannes Lorenzen

An unusual political creature celebrates twenty years of cooperation between a wide range of committed government officials, rural and agricultural stakeholders and experts and rural communities and activists. Hannes Lorenzen spoke with Boban Ilic, co-initiator and Secretary General of the Standing Working Group on Regional Rural Development in South Eastern Europe, at the 20-year anniversary gathering in Ohrid, North Macedonia. […]

Polish Rural Forum Takes Action For A Broad Rural Alliance

May 21, 2025 Hannes Lorenzen

The Polish Rural Parliament launched earlier this month, holding its inaugural gathering at the European Congress on Rural Renewal and Development organised by the Polish EU Presidency on May 8-10 2025. What does this mean for the rural movement in Poland? Below we bring you an interview with its co-initiators, Ryszard Kamiński (Polish Rural Forum) and Szymon Migoń (Polish Rural Youth Union). But first, Hannes Lorenzen reports from the Congress in Poznan. […]

Bosnia and Herzegovina | Who Owns Agricultural Land?

April 29, 2025 Katarina Kušić

“Who owns agricultural land” is never an easy question. In post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina, multi-layer governance adds another dimension of complexity. Farmland is disappearing as landscapes—and the people living in them—are reshaped by drawn out processes of refugee return and restitutions, and new forms of extractivism. Dr Katarina Kušić and Z. V. explain how the Bosnian War of 1992-1995 continues to cast a shadow over land use. […]

Letter From The Farm | Community Farming in Ireland

April 25, 2025 Oliver Moore

On Cloughjordan Community Farm it takes a village to grow 50 sorts of vegetables. The member-owned farm produces high quality, nutritionally dense veggies using agroecological methods. Community is central to the farm’s work, from its CSA scheme to volunteering, and most recently a big effort to plant 2,000 trees for syntropic farming. Letter from the farm by Oliver Moore. […]

Letter From The Farm | Seven Years In: Realising Our Agroecological Vision

April 11, 2025 Chiara Garini

We are back after a long time on Chiara Garini’s farm at the foot of the Italian Alps. Seven years ago, Chiara and her partner started from scratch with a lot of dreams. Now they have a fully operational farm business. While proud of realising their vision, rather than resting on their laurels, they are now looking to sustain the necessary growth. […]

Letter From The Farm | All In A Day’s Tree Planting

April 4, 2025 Martino Newcombe

We’re back with Martino Newcombe in the West of Ireland, where he reflects on a winter’s day of planting a shelter belt of native tree species. Not on his farm, but on that of his neighbour, a retired farmer, with the help of another neighbour – echoing the traditional Irish practice of helping each other out that is known as “meitheal”. As a wildlife corridor connects flora and fauna, local networks of knowledge and skills spawn opportunities to build resilience. Martino shares the insights of a day’s work. […]

Letter From A Future Farmer | Living Alternatives

March 28, 2025 Jessica Girardi

Can principles of local action, mutual aid and intergenerational cohesion help to revive rural areas? Jessica Girardi immersed herself in this question during a month-long Forum Synergies scholarship hosted by the Porto di Terra collective in Sicily in August-September 2024. She found living proof that rural areas can be dynamic, progressive and experimental. Letter by Jessica Girardi. […]

The Food Sovereignty Scandal Made in France

March 5, 2025 ARC

France has more than enough land to feed its inhabitants. Yet almost half of French farmland serves the global export trade. Food sovereignty will remain a pipe dream as long as the absurd globalised food system continues to hold sway, says a new report by Terre de Liens. The Rural Resilience project reports from the launch event in Paris. […]

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. […]

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. […]

Rural Gathering | From Common Ground to Common Action

December 20, 2024 ARC

During the short end of November days, the annual European Rural Gathering in Grzybów, Poland, co-organised by ARC2020 and a rich ecosystem of partners, marked another stop of our rural caravan from France to Germany to Poland. It was a meeting of heads, hearts and hands that opened doors of connection and possibility for future collaboration on rural resilience. […]

Letter From The Farm | The West of Ireland Never ‘Dewilded’

December 20, 2024 Martino Newcombe

Martino Newcombe runs a small farm in Co. Galway in the west of Ireland. Biodiversity is a central focus of his work. He practices conservation grazing on marshy terrain with Kerry cattle, a hardy ancient Irish dairy breed. In his stewardship of the land he is careful to heed the inherent understanding of deep ecology passed down from previous generations. In this first letter from his farm, Martino explains that you don’t have to be a cow to tell milk from cream. […]