This brochure presents eight case studies showcasing the role of European farming families as resilient, rural entrepreneurs in the context of the UN International year of Family Farming (IYFF) (2014). It is clear within the IYFF that family farming as a global political objective refers to a sub-set of family-owned farms, which are small in both economic and physical terms, and which rely primarily on family labour. However, within the EU especially, family farms operate at very different scales. On the one hand there are a large number of small (less than 2 ha) farms; but on the other, over half of the utilized agricultural land in the EU is farmed on large family farms (holdings of over 100 ha).