It takes a village to raise a child. What happens when a village makes the choice to help feed its children? What are the steps to ensure good local food on plates and in bellies? How can local author...

Resilient, self-reliant food systems. This is what a major new IPES-Food report puts forward as a way to deal with food price volatility driven by increasing geopolitical tensions. We recognise here m...

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 ...

If the French municipal elections this spring taught us anything, it’s that what’s on our plates is most certainly political. Food is about much more than farming. In rural areas especially, food dire...

This time next month, the European Parliament will have the power to open Europe’s farmgates and plates to new genetic technologies, without the guardrails of labelling, monitoring, or liability. But ...

April 21st will be the next (and perhaps final) milestone meeting for negotiators trying to seal a deal on the overhaul of the EU’s seed legislation. On the very same day, the Council is to vote on th...

Who milks the cows when the farmers fall sick? There is only one answer to that question for most: the farmers, or their families. But it is a very different story in two European countries—and while right now, access to sick leave and holidays is determined by postcode, this could soon start to change. Here, ARC2020’s Natasha Foote digs into how these farm relief services work in practice and what the ingredients for success look like for other countries that want to set up similar services for their farmers. Who milks the cows when the farmers fall sick? There is only one answer to that question for most: the farmers, or their families. But it is a very different story in two European countries—and while right now, access to sick leave and holidays is determined by postcode, this could soon start to change. Here, ARC2020’s Natasha Foote digs into how these farm relief services work in practice and what the ingredients for success look like for other countries that want to set up similar services for their farmers.

Four years ago, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent fertiliser prices soaring, exposing the true extent of just how reliant our food systems are on fossil fuels and the vulnerability of geopolitical cha...

Lawyers have called it undemocratic. The EU’s watchdog has found maladministration. Two years after a wave of farm protests swept across Europe, the political response that dismantled key environmenta...

Seeds are rarely seen for what they truly are: the building blocks of agricultural systems that determine how our food is produced. This is no accident. It is the result of industry taking control, pr...

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 n...

The EU’s watchdog is ready for the fight over fairness in the EU’s future farming policy just as NGOs launch another round of legal scrutiny over the Commission’s conduct in the handling of the next C...

Lawyers have declared it unlawful. The EU’s watchdog has found maladministration. And yet it’s full steam ahead for the EU’s simplification train – or ‘omnibus’, to be more precise. As one simplificat...

How accessible are conversations around transition? Good Food For All! – a European Citizens' Initiative carried by a coalition of over 300+ civil society organisations across Europe, including ARC202...

Welcome to the Year of the CAP  —  but just how “common” will the EU’s next agricultural policy be? Could pensioners be excluded from direct payments? And will farmers finally get a day off? Meanwhile...

Ireland, Spain and Poland are among a number of Member States now looking to biogas to support the transition to sustainable energy systems. But is investing in biogas infrastructure a beneficial use ...

With the signing of the EU-Mercosur free trade agreement this weekend, a spectre of the past comes back to haunt Europe’s farmers. But there is still a political window to save their future. Op-ed by ...

It's easy to be overwhelmed. As we prepare to ride the wave of multiple crises, going into 2026 we are minding our mental health at ARC2020, and diving into this topic with rural actors and communitie...

A platform for organisations working together for good food, good farming and better rural policies in the EU

It’s getting increasingly harder for the pesticide lobby to argue against the science showing harm to people and ecosystems of its toxic products. ‘Luckily’ it has an ace up its sleeve: farmers' frust...

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, ...

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 ...

In the run-up to this November’s Rural Resilience Gathering, ARC2020’s Ashley Parsons and Thierry Lohr, local councillor for Plessé and one of the key initiators of a Université Paysanne in the munici...

The Rural Pact Conference “From vision to action: Empowering rural areas for the future” took place in Kortrijk, Belgium on 16-17 September. Following this event, ARC2020 president Hannes Lorenzen sha...

October is just around the corner - and so are the European Days of Action! Since 2018, the #GoodFoodGoodFarming movement has united thousands across Europe to demand just food systems. This year’s fo...

On 27 - 30 November, the Rural Resilience Gathering 2025 will take place in Plessé, France, co-organised by ARC2020 and elected representatives of Plessé together with a whole host of partners active ...

Germany’s energy transition is affecting its land market, driving investment and increasing concentration of land ownership. In this op-ed, Anne Neuber of Netzwerk Flächensicherung, an alliance workin...

This October 20-23, over 400 rural delegates from across Europe will gather in the north-east of Scotland for the 6th European Rural Parliament (ERP), a participative democratic assembly that shines a...

In a global context marked by rising trade tensions, identity-based isolationism, and climate pressures, the Seeds4All project wanted to understand how Switzerland, landlocked at the heart of the Euro...

ARC’s Hannes Lorenzen met Vytenis Grigas, a young Lithuanian farmer and psychology lecturer, at a CEJA conference on the future of EU farm policy. Five years ago Vytenis began what he calls a “serious...

In a farming system that demands more than it gives, Marie Halicki finds that relationships, not yields, nourish resilience, sovereignty, and sanity.

A new idea is brewing in Germany, with the first seeds sown of a new alliance along the food value chain for cereals and legumes. ARC2020’s President Hannes Lorenzen reports on how farmers, bakers, se...

The European Commission is preparing to tear up the architecture of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), in what could set the stage for a radical overhaul of the EU’s farming subsidy programme, acco...

Rural voices still seem to go unheard in EU policymaking. The Rural Pact Coordination Group proposes a new tool for rural stakeholders to take the power back: the Declaration on the Future of Rural Ar...

If we want local food systems to thrive, every link in the chain must be nurtured: seeds must be saved, farmers must earn a fair price, processors must adapt their methods—and consumers must be able t...

The Seeds4All project emerges from a Swiss immersion with a two-part reflection on how seeds can become anchoring points for rebuilding connections and fostering healthy interdependencies in the pursu...

A number of hazardous pesticides which are banned in the EU are freely manufactured and exported to other countries with weaker regulations, putting human health and the environment at risk. The EU al...

Climate Farmers - an influential think-and-do tank focused on regenerative farming - has stepped away from Carbon Markets. This news has been making headlines since it was announced in June. So what’s...

A few weeks ago, I came to a shocking realisation. After 6 years of writing about the ins and outs of the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) – the politics, the people, the policy, the reform(s), a...

Vojvodina, the heart of Serbia’s agricultural production, is known for its fertile chernozem soils. However, intensive soil tillage methods and low rates of organic matter return raise concerns about ...

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 in...