ARC2020 Staff

The countryside is a nice place to live. Farmers are happy. That’s what we heard on the ground in the cooperative farms we visited in France in 2021 and 2022.

Succession bridges the gap between generations. The link between the past and the future, it allows us to envisage the future – in continuity or forging new paths – informed by previous failures and successes.

Cargonomia officially was launched in 2015. It came out of the idea: how can we connect the farm, bike messengers and a bike workshop?

Rural areas are wholesome spaces and only policies which take this wholesomeness into account will be supportive to rural areas where thriving societies live, work and evolve. We have gathered examples of how it works. The moment to start a new integrated rural policy is now.

Beyond our local context, the Food Sovereignty movement provides a global political framework for change based on social justice, solidarity, empowering women and re- organising international trade and economic relations.

In France, collective farms are quite common (known as a Groupement Agricole d’Exploitation en Commun, or GAEC). Social issues on the farm are central to farming in a collective set-up. But these farmers are also keen to look beyond the farm to build community and connection.