sustainable food systems Archives - Agricultural and Rural Convention

Empowering Cities: The Missing Link in Europe’s Sustainable Food Future

November 21, 2024 ARC

Europe’s mounting crises present an opportunity to redesign our food systems. We need a comprehensive food policy framework that ensures resilience, sustainability and inclusivity – and promotes cooperation over competition. The new EU commission must harness the collective power of cities, rural communities and European policymakers. Op-ed by Anna Scavuzzo, Vice Mayor of Milan and David Dessers, Deputy Mayor of Leuven. […]

France | Local Authorities Can Lead on Sustainable Food

November 18, 2024 ARC

France’s territorial food programmes are an exciting example of what can happen when local communities have a say in their food systems. An open letter signed by a collective of more than 120 French mayors and local councillors of all political stripes, 19 organisations and 7 scientists, and published on Friday in Le Monde, calls for a systemic vision and state support to local authorities who are working to advance the agroecological transition and transform local food systems. […]

Marburg Food Dialogue – Putting more regional produce on the menu

July 8, 2024 ARC

How can restaurants serve more regional produce? A networking event at the Creativity and Social Innovation Hub Marburg (CIM) brought together local restaurant operators, suppliers, civil society actors and employees of the city and district to discuss this question. […]

Germany | Communications for Sustainable Food Systems – Bringing everyone along

June 28, 2024 ARC

In Marburg, Germany kollektiv von MORGEN (the collective of TOMORROW) is working with food education activists and other food system stakeholders to develop regional communication strategies around sustainable food. Building on ideas formulated at the European Action-Gathering for Sustainable Food Systems last November, participants of a recent workshop continued to shape plans for the region. […]

Who will Deliver the Science and Research for a Sustainable Food System?

December 20, 2023 William Burns

Who will deliver the science and research we need to support a sustainable food system? Currently, across Europe, we see that relevant R&D&E is done by an underfunded patchwork of institutions and definitely at an inadequate scale given the challenge. […]

Marburg Gathering | Building Bridges for Future-Proof Food Systems

December 14, 2023 Louise Kelleher

In early November, the Rural Resilience project was proud to support the European Action-Gathering for Sustainable Food Systems. This meeting of over 100 food systems actors working at local, regional, national and European levels was co-organised by ARC2020 and local partners Kollektiv von Morgen and AbL in Marburg, Germany. Report by Louise Kelleher of the Rural Resilience project. […]

We Can’t Eat Promises! Good Food Good Farming month culminates in Brussels protest

November 20, 2023 ARC

“We can’t eat promises!” – The slogan of the Good Food Good Farming protest for a better food system, which took place in Brussels on November 8, 2023. The protest was the culmination of the Good Food Good Farming October Action Days, and highlighted the urgent need for transformative agri-food policies to realise key aspects of the EU’s Farm to Fork Strategy. […]

Sustainable Food Systems cannot be postponed! – From the Marburg Gathering

November 20, 2023 ARC

Photo essay reporting back from the Marburg Rural Action Gathering in November. While the eagerly awaited Marburg Action Plan for Future-proof Food Systems is in the works, here’s a glimpse into the achievements made during this dynamic event. […]

Rural Resilience | Diary from the Ground – Autumn 2023

November 2, 2023 Marie-Lise Breure-Montagne

Food is much more than a stomach to be filled, and actions on the ground in France are focusing on the social barriers to local, healthy food for all. Marie-Lise Breure-Montagne reports. […]

Ernährungsrat: The democratic potential of Food Policy Councils in Germany

July 13, 2023 Marie-Lise Breure-Montagne

Part 2 in democratising local food policy: we look to Germany and the democratic potential of Food Policy Councils. […]

France | Democratising Food Policy – Tweaking The Financial Toolbox

July 5, 2023 Marie-Lise Breure-Montagne

How can a top-down tool such as France’s Territorial Food Programmes help to democratise local food policy? How does the French infrastructure compare to Germany’s Food Policy Councils? In the best case scenario, communities take food into their own hands. Part 1 of a policy analysis by the Rural Resilience project. […]

Good Food Good Farming | People Across Europe Demand Better Food Systems!

June 26, 2023 ARC

As the European Commission is expected to publish a proposal for a Sustainable Food Systems Law in the autumn, Good Food Good Farming launched Food for Talk: days of dialogue that highlight the voices of farmers, fishers, activists and citizens. In a participatory video, the movement now calls for #GoodFood4EU through an ambitious law proposal. Report by Good Food Good Farming. […]

Reconnect With Beans – Take Our Food Power Back

May 9, 2023 ARC

If we all agree to take back the power over our food, what do we need? Helping to frame the discussion at the Global Bean Seed Festival, Xavier Hamon, artisan cook and partner of the Rural Resilience project, encourages us to re-cultivate hundreds of varieties of grains and pulses, take back land, win political mandates, and most of all, support those who work for the living world, day after day. Words : Xavier Hamon. […]

Op-Ed | Europe Eats the World

June 18, 2022 Jabier Ruiz

“Europe feeds the world” is a line often heard in EU policy debates and the media. A line often used to sideline calls to lower the impacts of European agriculture and to place “providing food” as the highest political priority. But is this line really true? In this op-ed lead author, Jabier Ruiz, of the WWF European Policy Office, summarises the main pieces of evidence gathered, which show that, far from feeding the world, Europe consumes more than its fair share. […]

France | Cooking Up Fairer Food & Farming Part 1

February 18, 2022 Valérie Geslin

For Xavier Hamon, the term ‘chef’ is problematic. It fosters an unfair power dynamic between the person who produces the food and the person who cooks the food. Yet farmers and cooks are often up against the same challenges. Xavier is a founding member of the Slow Food Cooks Alliance, a partner of Nos Campagnes en Résilience. He favours a cooperative rather than a competitive approach to food – to the benefit of all involved. In conversation with Valérie Geslin. […]