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This edition of the EAFRD Projects Brochure presents twelve projects that show how Rural Development policy is helping to make rural areas more attractive places for young people to live and work, in agriculture and beyond.

Youth in rural areas, and young farmers in particular, enhance rural vitality and pave the way for stronger value chains and rural prosperity. Generational renewal is one of the preconditions for improved competitiveness of the agricultural sector over the longer term and for sustainable food production in Europe.

Networking – and rural development networking is a prime example of this – is first and foremost about people. It is about coming together, developing new ways of thinking and operating, and building something new, together; something that is bigger than the sum of its individual parts; and something that benefits rural communities everywhere.

On the occasion of networX – the largest ever gathering of the European rural networking community to be organised under the 2014-2020 programming period – we want to salute the human spirit of networking and mark 10 years of the European Network for Rural Development (ENRD).

This book highlights rural networking through the eyes of young people, as they are the ones who will determine the future development of Europe’s countryside. It also illustrates how networks support rural entrepreneurship, the environment, rural heritage and vibrant rural communities – areas where the impact of rural networking is unmistakable.

This is the main report of the 13^th meeting of the National Rural Networks (NRNs) in the 2014-2020 period. Event co-organised by the Irish Rural Network Support Unit.

It overviews exchanges on ways of reinforcing stakeholder engagement; various topics including networking under the post-2020 Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), Smart Villages and Generational Renewal; and finally the networX event (11-12 April 2019 – Brussels, Belgium).

This is the main report of the ENRD Workshop on 'Biodiversity and the CAP: working together to reach conservation goals'.

The workshop explored how to ensure the most effective contribution of current RDPs and future CAP Strategic Plans to support the implementation of EU biodiversity policy, by encouraging dialogue and facilitating exchanges among the relevant agriculture and environmental actors involved in biodiversity conservation in rural Europe.

This is the main report of the ENRD Workshop on ‘Generational Renewal: Attracting Young Farmers and Entrepreneurs in Rural Areas’.

This workshop was part of the activities carried out under the ENRD thematic work on Generational Renewal and Social Inclusion. It included an overview of practices supporting young farmers and new entrants, land mobility and access to land in different Member States.

This is the main report of the seventh meeting of the ENRD Thematic Group (TG) on 'Smart Villages'. 

It provides insights on how to use and plan Smart Villages in the future CAP Strategic Plans (according to the Commission’s proposal for CAP), and how to create synergies between the CAP Strategic Plans and other funds.

This factsheet presents key findings about the experiences of Network Support Units (NSUs) in collecting and disseminating examples of projects supported through the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD). The findings emerged from the analysis of information gathered through an online survey and the ENRD Workshop on 'Project Examples and Good Practices'.

This case study overviews the steps Spain has taken towards developing and implementing strategic plans and initiatives to close the digital divide between urban and rural areas. These initiatives take place at all administrative levels and aim to tackle the acute problem of depopulation of rural areas.

The document highlights the key point related to the sustainability aspects of the bioeconomy, looking at the current thinking around the systems to monitor the sustainability of bio-based value chains.