Learn how Rural Development Programme funding, combined with innovative financial solutions like crowdfunding, supported a group of young agronomists in France to develop a self-sufficient farm producing local, quality organic products. 

Find more good practices related to job creation in the ENRD Project Database. 

Watch out for the popular vote of the ENRD Rural Inspiration Awards! You will have the opportunity to vote for your favourite rural development project from a list of 25 nominees.

Besides the popular vote, the awards will recognise inspiring projects in five thematic categories: improving the competitiveness of rural areas; environment and climate action; rural revitalisation; social inclusion; and LEADER/CLLD.

The winners will be announced at ‘networX’, the ENRD networking event taking place in Brussels on 11-12 April 2019.

Explore in detail the environmental elements of the European Commission’s legislative proposals for the post-2020 Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), including their related simplification aspects. 

Read the Commission’s new brochure on this topic, overviewing elements such as eco-schemes, rural development tools, as well as the role of knowledge, innovation and digitisation in delivering environmental and climate-related public goods. Find out more about the system of enhanced conditionality and browse through three hypothetical examples of how an EU Member State might decide to use elements of the future green architecture in drawing up its CAP Strategic Plan. 

The latest meeting of the National Rural Network (NRN) support units (21 February 2019 – Athlone, Ireland) discussed reinforcing stakeholder engagement and enhancing collaboration by effectively addressing the needs of network members and reaching out to new actors. 

Specific topics included networking under the post-2020 Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), Smart Villages and Generational Renewal. Finally, network representatives discussed their involvement in and contribution to the upcoming ENRD ‘networX’ event (11-12 April 2019 – Brussels, Belgium). 

A recent ENRD workshop (22 February 2019 – Athlone, Ireland) explored various national schemes and practices supporting young farmers and new entrants to agriculture and overviewed the relevant elements of the post-2020 Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) legislative proposals. 

The event looked into support tools for facilitating access to land – both under the Rural Development Programmes (RDPs) and other funding sources – and exchanged examples of successful youth entrepreneurship from both young farmers and other rural entrepreneurs. This event forms part of the ENRD thematic work on Generational Renewal. 

Browse through a set of case studies exploring various strategies and initiatives related to digitisation of rural areas in France, Germany, Spain and across Cornwall and the rural UK. 

The case studies overview aspects such as: the development and implementation of ITC strategic plans; actions to enhance broadband infrastructure and digital hubs; digital training; e-health innovation, and also feature examples of cooperation in this area. 

Follow the ENRD work on Smart Villages, browse through the online portal and join the Facebook community. 

The green architecture of the post-2020 Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and the designing of flexible eco-climate schemes tailored to different territorial needs within the future CAP Strategic Plans were the focus of a recent international congress (6-7 February 2019 – Leeuwarden, the Netherlands). 

The event reached a consensus on placing environment and climate issues high on the list of priorities for the next programming period and on spending public money to deliver public goods. Additionally, it showcased the successful example of the Dutch cooperative approach to agri-environment-climate schemes, implementing sustainable practices on a wider territorial scale to achieve common objectives and targets, and deliver more environmental benefits. 

A new publication – produced by the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food) – maps out a new governance architecture for sustainable food systems and puts forward a concrete vision for its achievement. 

The report makes the case for a Common Food Policy for the EU, bringing together the various sectoral policies that affect food production, processing, distribution, and consumption, and re-focusing all actions on the transition to sustainability.  

The publication draws on a three-year participatory research process involving over 400 farmers, food entrepreneurs, civil society activists, scientists and policy-makers. 

The sixth meeting of the European Rural Networks’ Assembly Sub-group on LEADER/CLLD (31 January 2019 – Brussels, Belgium) discussed LEADER/CLLD in the post-2020 legislative framework, current implementation, as well as self-assessment and communication. 

Looking at both the state-of-play in the current period and possibilities for improvement in the future, Sub-group members exchanged examples of Local Action Group (LAG) approaches to self-assessment and identified priority actions for identifying and communicating good LEADER practice and achievement. 

Help to better understand the current and potential uses of precision faming tools – fill in this short survey by 17 March 2019!

The survey is targeted at farmers, both users and non-users of Precision Agricultural Technologies, and is available in all EU languages. It is ran by a partnership between several EU institutions and agencies and European NGOs.

A new online tool produced by the Evaluation Helpdesk seeks to support the assessment of Rural Development Programme (RDP) achievements and impacts in 2019 and ex-post. 

The tool provides insight into the selection of evaluation approaches that can be used for the assessment of common RDP impact indicators, as well as the necessary data and information sources at the EU level. Additionally, it provides recommendations on possible solutions for overcoming data gaps at the national and regional levels. 

Browse this collection of inspiring project examples including business models farmers and foresters could adopt to diversify their activities and income making use of new bio-based products and value chains within the circular bioeconomy.  

This publication was produced for the EIP-AGRI event  “Opportunities for farm diversification in the circular bioeconomy” (6-7 February 2019 – Vilnius, Lithuania) which brought together a wide range of stakeholders to discuss ways of taking advantage of circular economy markets.