Investing in the Next Generation – When local politics takes on the school canteen  | Agricultural and Rural Convention

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...

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What’s Food Sovereignty got to do with it? The New Geopolitics of Food | Agricultural and Rural Convention

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...

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Sitting with our contradictions - Learning to reconnect with nature and find peace as humans | Agricultural and Rural Convention

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 ...

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Hungry for Democracy? Here’s a flavour of France’s local solutions for food sovereignty | Agricultural and Rural Convention

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...

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Inside Brussels’ Eleventh-Hour Battle Over New GMOs | Agricultural and Rural Convention

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 ...

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Coming Up: Decision Day for the Future of Seeds and New GMOs | Agricultural and Rural Convention

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...

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Who milks the cows when farmers fall sick?  | Agricultural and Rural Convention

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.

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How Iran war exposes Europe’s dangerous dependency on fertilisers | Agricultural and Rural Convention

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...

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Pitchfork Politics - How Closed-Door Talks Around Europe’s Farmer Protests Rewrote the EU’s Green Rules | Agricultural and Rural Convention

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...

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How to Cultivate Knowledge for Seed Autonomy? Part 1 - Who Teaches the Seeds? | Agricultural and Rural Convention

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...

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France | The Ag Coop that Shares More than Machinery | Agricultural and Rural Convention

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...

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CAP | EU Watchdog Gears Up To Fight For Fairness in Future Farming Policy | Agricultural and Rural Convention

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...

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EU’s Simplification Saga Set to Continue Despite Legal Warnings | Agricultural and Rural Convention

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...

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Agroecology has a PR problem. Here’s how we can solve it. | Agricultural and Rural Convention

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...

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The Year of the CAP & Big Budget Overhaul - Key EU Policy Moments to Watch in 2026 | Agricultural and Rural Convention

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...

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Learning from Germany’s Decades of Public Biogas Support | Agricultural and Rural Convention

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 ...

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Mercosur will make European farmers more vulnerable to international capital and commodities flows | Agricultural and Rural Convention

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 ...

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What kind of fight makes sense in 2026? | Agricultural and Rural Convention

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...

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Agricultural and Rural Convention - ARC2020

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

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Op-Ed | Pesticide lobby use farmers’ protests as cover for slashing EU safety regulations  | Agricultural and Rural Convention

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...

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European Days of Action 2025 - United for Food Justice | Agricultural and Rural Convention

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, ...

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

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 ...

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France | Not Perfect, But Possible - Seeing is Believing at Institut de Tramayes | Agricultural and Rural Convention

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...

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Rural Pact | Stuck in The Loop – Time To Get To Action | Agricultural and Rural Convention

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...

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