Rural and intermediate areas account for 88% of the EU’s territory, are home to 55% of its population, generate 43% of its gross value added and host 56% of its jobs. Rural development is therefore extremely important and a vital tool for achieving the territorial cohesion objective enshrined in the...

Agriculture in the mountains differs from the lowlands and has some inherent constraints due to geographical isolation, a low levels of infrastructure development, difficult climatic conditions and fragile ecosystems making agricultural production, marketing and development more difficult. Agriculture and forestry are the most traditional \ work sectors in the Carpathians, shaping...

The European Commission is expected to publish its communication on the Long-Term Vision for Rural Areas during the first semester 2021. The Long-Term Vision for Rural Areas is coordinated by Vice-President Dubravka Šuica, European Commissioner for Democracy & Demography. Janusz Wojciechowski, EU Commissioner for Agriculture, and Elisa Ferreira, Commissioner for...

A cultura do café na Bahia vem ganhando, cada vez mais, lugar de destaque no país, com a qualidade dos grãos, especialmente os produzidos por agricultores e agricultoras familiares, em Territórios de Identidade como o da Chapada Diamantina e do Sudoeste Baiano. Os cafés atraem consumidores de diversas partes do...

Biodiversity decline in agricultural landscapes has been problematic for decades in Slovenia, and extensive grasslands are one of the most threatened habitats in the country. The LIFE project “Conservation and Management of Dry Grasslands in Eastern Slovenia” (also known as ‘LIFE to grasslands’) addresses biodiversity conservation in agricultural environments.

A escala finca los indicadores sociales de sostenibilidad agrícola más comunes son las horas-labor y la estacionalidad de la mano de obra.  La magnitud del esfuerzo físico que los trabajadores invierten en las actividades agrícolas normalmente no se utiliza como un indicador de eficiencia y sostenibilidad; por esta razón, en...

The 2020 celebration of the International Day of Forests with the theme “Forests and Biodiversity: Too precious to lose” at FAO headquarters was a virtual event with video messages from QU Dongyu, Director-General, FAO and Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, Acting Executive Secretary of the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity....

Why does mountain agriculture deserve special attention in a Zero Hunger context? Firstly, because hunger remains common in many mountainous areas. While on a global scale, food insecurity has tended to go down, mountain dwellers have fared worse than people living in plains. Secondly, because mountains cover a large part...

The Pilot Project on Smart Eco-Social Villages, initiated by the European Parliament, has been carried out by a consortium consisting of Ecorys, Origin for Sustainability and R.E.D. under the responsibility of the European Commission (Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development). The potential effect of this Pilot Project is to shape...

This Special Issue, a product of the SIMRA project and its Thematic Session organised at the 125th Anniversary IUFRO Congress in 2017, is a contribution to advancing and exchanging scientific knowledge of social innovation in the context of forestry. A purpose of the Issue is to promote social learning, contribute...

The Decade of Family Farming provides an extraordinary opportunity for the United Nations to achieve its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in an inclusive, collaborative and coherent way. Putting family farming and all family-based production models1 at the focus of interventions for a period of ten years, will contribute to a...

Until now, there has been little information available to the international community regarding the state of forests in the Caucasus and Central Asia. Today, however, the UNECE/FAO Forestry and Timber Section has released the first regional overview of the forest sector in these countries since they became independent in the 1990s.

The Rapid Livestock Market Assessment guide seeks to facilitate livestock market assessments in order to support those operating in the livestock sector, such as multilateral financial institutions, international development organizations, governments, research organizations, NGOs, community-based organizations, service providers and input suppliers. The guide provides project design teams with basic skills and...

On June 25, 2019, Euromontana attended a conference in Brussels on “Social Agriculture and Care Farm: Work opportunity, Social Partnership and Inclusion” organised by the Care-T-Farms project. Care-T-Farms is an Erasmus + programme, willing to encourage the use of farms as places promoting positive mental and physical health and wellbeing.

Euromontana participated in a public hearing on 10th September 2019 to share comments on the own initiative report on “the macroregional strategy for the Carpathian region”, prepared by Mr Wladyslaw Ortyl, member of the Committee of the Regions (CoR) and Marshall of the Polish Podckarpackie region. This draft opinion calls for the establishment of a...

Pastoralism is coping with many challenges, including its low economic viability, excessive bureaucracy, and low generational renewal, leading to its progressive disappearance across Europe. To economically compensate for the environmental services of pastoralism, including preventing forest fires through grazing, two complementary pathways were extensively discussed: on one hand, the need for...

How to combat depopulation and make rural areas vibrant again? This was the question addressed during the ENRD Workshop on May 21, 2019. The event explored the role of Rural Development Programmes and other EU policies in maintaining a high quality of life in these regions, where demographic trends are...

By supporting local traditions to build better livelihoods and empower communities, FAO and its partners are working toward a world free of poverty and hunger.  

A new webpage dedicated to mountain areas, islands and sparsely populated areas has been launched by the European Commission, find there all news and studies related to our territories

According to the OECD, territorial relationships have deeply changed in recent decades. Improvements in communication technology, increasing movements of peoples and goods, and changes in land use have reshaped the relationships between urban and rural areas. This is also true for mountain areas, where large metropoles like Milano have recently...