Stories from the Ground Archives - Agricultural and Rural Convention

Italy | A Love Letter From The Farm

July 17, 2026 Chiara Garini

After eight beautiful, mucky, frustrating, biodiversity-filled and fulfilling years of giving voice to farmers—for who better to narrate the highs and lows of life on the farm?—the much-loved “Letters From The Farm” series is drawing to a close. And so we invite the doyenne of the series, our very first contributor, to guide us into a series of closing reflections. Welcome back to Chiara Garini’s forest garden at the foot of the Italian Alps. […]

NEW publication | Everyday Heroines – Stories Rooted in Rural Resilience

July 16, 2026 ARC

Lovingly curated and launched today, “Everyday Heroines – Stories Rooted in Rural Resilience” is a tribute to the extraordinary strength of women who, every day, fundamentally shape the future of their communities. A joint publication by ARC2020, Polska z Natury Foundation, ZIARNO and the Ecological Folk High School. […]

Hungary | Hands on the Land to Grow Alternatives for Humanity

July 10, 2026 Zsámboki Biokert

Welcome back to Zsámboki Biokert, a market garden and alternative learning space, located close to Budapest. Young trainees flock here to learn how to work with nature and grow nutrient dense food. This knowledge-sharing is part of a broader strategy of resilience – for young people in pursuit of meaningful lifestyles grounded in wellbeing, but also for the farm team and wider community. When overwhelmed by the scale of the challenges, collective advocacy for agroecology can be a coping technique. A letter from the farm by Logan Strenchock. […]

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. […]

France | The Ag Coop that Shares More than Machinery

March 25, 2026 Pauline Petit

What if, instead of going into debt to invest in their farms, farmers came together to pool equipment? What if, instead of struggling to run a small farm alone, there was extra help at hand? What if new entrants could draw on the experience of more established farmers in their local area? It may sound too good to be true, but this is the reality with France’s network of Agricultural Machinery Cooperatives (CUMA). Pauline Petit reports from Plume Chat Huant, a local CUMA cooperative in north-west France. […]

Italy | The Fruits of Unseen Labour

March 6, 2026 Lana Chaduneli

What if we acknowledged the labour embedded in every plate of food we eat, in every glass of wine? Forum Synergies trainee Lana Chaduneli spent a rich two weeks in mentorship with pioneering winemaker Charlotte Horton at Castello di Potentino in Tuscany in autumn 2025, where she learned how agriculture, culture and intellectual life need not be separated, but can instead be mutually enriching. By Lana Chaduneli. […]

Ireland | Lessons from the “Poor Man’s Cow”

January 30, 2026 Shane Casey

We are back with Shane Casey in The Burren, Ireland, where lambing season is in full swing. Shane has been busy with the next generation on and off the farm too, visiting schools with a herd of Old Irish Goats. Once a common sight in the Irish countryside, this rare native breed is helping to revive a cultural heritage that has lessons to teach us today, on biodiversity, wildfire management, and the transmission of knowledge from one generation to the next. Over to Shane in the lambing shed. […]

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. […]

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. […]

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. […]