Cercare

Most of the world's farmers are engaged in small scale agriculture. The majority of them are in developing countries but there are many in developed countries as well. Small farms make up the vast majority of the EU's 10 million farms. What constitutes a small farm depends on the context. However, improving the conditions of small-scale food producers is a global objective. Recent studies have lowered past estimates of how much of the global food supply is produced by small farms. Notwithstanding ...

The post-2020 cohesion policy reform is already the subject of debate among policy-makers, stakeholders and EU institutions. One issue being discussed in various European and regional institutions is that of the insufficient support for the EU's sparsely populated and underpopulated areas. The challenges these regions face are very much related to demographic change, and raise the general issue of the level of EU funding for regional development. Various studies suggest that low population levels ...

This study looks at the rise of large-scale land deals, ‘land grabbing’, in the EU. It finds significant evidence that farmland grabbing is underway in the EU today. It discusses a number of the drivers of farmland grabbing in the EU and examines the impacts of farmland grabbing for European food security and food sovereignty, rural employment and vitality, and environmental sustainability. It argues that farmland grabbing, especially when connected to other burning European land issues, calls for ...

This note discusses the definitions, challenges and future prospects of family farming in the EU. Some challenges, such as market volatility and climate change, are general for all EU farm structures, but some are specific to family farmers: their smallness, lack of power within the food chain, and intergenerational farm succession. However, family farming – often by pluriactive and/or diversified households – is likely to continue to dominate EU farm structure in the foreseeable future, despite ...

Family farming is the predominant business model in European agriculture. The key challenges faced by family farms are considered in this briefing note and the effectiveness of policy measures in the EU, both the current measures and those agreed for the 2014 to 2020 period, in tackling these challenges is examined. The main conclusions are that Pillar I policies have transferred substantial funds to family farms and have ensured the survival of many farms that would have otherwise gone out of business ...