Transferring pastoral knowledge to preserve vibrant rural areas Over millennia, pastoral societies have accumulated knowledge and skills on how to successfully manage pastoral systems. Their work contributes to maintain vibrant rural areas, benefitting the rural economy and reversing land abandonment, while it also unlocks multiple ecosystem services for the whole society. Yet,...

Rome - The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) today unveiled a prototype rooftop farm at its Rome headquarters, an initiative that highlights how innovative technology contributes to making agri-food systems more sustainable and to increasing access to healthy diets.The farm will help explore the potential of...

It has been since 1998 that Valdibella Cooperative is working in Camporeale, Italy to create and spread alternatives to the food system in Sicily. With more than 30 members, Valdibella Cooperative aims at restoring dignity to farmers by promoting concrete actions against commercial and labour exploitation and by applying organic agricultural methods...

Access Agriculture has won the prestigious International Innovation Award for Sustainable Food and Agriculture in the category “Award for innovations that empower youth in sustainable food systems” based on its model of young entrepreneurs.

Despite the raise of awareness on the use of pesticides during the last 30 years, pesticide industries grew up thanks to the lack of information about the real damage these products could cause on the environment, human health and on producers’ incomes. The lack of knowledge using large and small...

As countries report mounting cases of the COVID-19, the outbreak presents them and the global community with unprecedented challenges in recent times. FAO monitors the experience of those heavily affected by the pandemic looking at the immediate impacts and the mitigation measures of countries in responding to the crisis. Drawing...

Digital tools that suit the complexity of diversified farms and meet their specific needs can bring new challenges. Once these are overcome, however, they can contribute to farm resilience and viability. Meet two Italian farm enterprises and see how their stories and narratives show that digitalisation means not only access...

The proposed operative group (GO) intends to set up a new circular local economy model, which combines the profitability of farms with social productivity: the valorization of horticultural genetic resources will be based on minimum technological input and on production schedule according to the needs of the community expressed by...

Since the Green Revolution, worldwide agriculture has been characterized by a typical top–down approach. The degree of autonomy, creativity, and responsibility of farmers has been limited by the continuous external inputs of chemicals, machinery, advice, subsidies and knowledge. The issue of sustainability has brought complexity and uncertainty to this mainly linear...

Provisional AgendaThe Global Launch of the United Nations Decade of Family Farming (2019-2028)27-29 May, 2019FAO headquarters in Rome, Italy

The project successfully reinforced the basis for the cooperative management of shared multispecies fisheries in the four MedSudMed participating countries: Italy, Libya, Malta and Tunisia. This was achieved through the implementation of subregional research programmes, the establishment of scientific networks, and improved national capacity building. Fisheries scientists and staff in...

The initiative involves the close collaboration between scientists and fishers, combining fishers local and experiential knowledge with scientific information in the quest for solutions.

Welcome to the final newsletter from the Farm-Success project!Since you last heard from us we have been carrying out the final adjustments, tests, and translations to our online training platform. We have also held several multiplier events across Europe in which young farmers and other stakeholders have discussed the importance of succession processes...

On Monday 26 February the Italian Ministry of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policies presented the identifying logo of the ‘mountain product’ optional quality term at the Chamber of Commerce of Sondrio. This initiative gives value to the work carried out by ERSAF together with Euromontana, which in recent years has...

Schola Campesina is a training and participatory research centre seeking to strengthen producers’ organizations in their struggle for food sovereignty through knowledge valorization and sharing. Based on the Nyéléni International Forum for Agroecology (2015), and on the principles of Dialogo de saberes, Schola Campesina seeks to boost the sharing of...

Permaculture is a holistic approach to agriculture that provides for human needs—high-quality food, fiber, fuel, medicine and building materials—while enhancing the ecosystems and communities from which these derive; it offers a set of ethics and principles and a means of integrating social and ecological processes in a way that is...

With the release, by the Ministry, of the common logo, Italian mountain producers have now all the normative references for the use of the optional quality term “Mountain product”.

Farm holidays, or agritourism for short, have been experiencing a significant increase in overnight stays for years. At the same time, it is more and more developing into a high-quality holiday offer. The striving for ever more demanding customers is to be seen quite sceptically. All too touristic structures endanger...

ERSAF, the Italian regional agency for agriculture and forestry services, who has been collaborating with Euromontana for many years for the promotion and valorisation of mountain products, started an experimental project, with the Lombardy Region, to implement the use of the optional quality scheme for “mountain products” in some of its...

Agritourism offers farmers the possibility of diversifying and generating additional income through on-farm touristic activities in order to help supplementing their low agricultural income. This helps to maintain the viability of active farms and rural communities. The more general understanding of agritourism states that agritourism activities support and promote agricultural...