We are currently facing multiple uncertainties and risks concerning food, public health, the geopolitical situation, the environment, climate and energy sources. Farmers' protests for decent prices and livelihoods dominated the first half of 2024, and in this context farmers and academics will come together as part of the conference to address a central question: "What lessons can be drawn from the successes and failures of past policies to regulate agricultural markets, in Europe and elsewhere in the world, to rebuild the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) on the basis of food sovereignty [1] and enable the agroecological transition [2]?"

You can find the academic and non-academic contributions here

Livestream

Conference structure

Approach

This conference will bring together academics, peasants, and small- and medium-sized farmers from several European countries to promote the co-construction of knowledge, based on academic work and farmers' experience and using innovative methods that enable exchanges to take place on an equal footing.

It will focus on knowledge building and exchange between farmers and academics, with an equal split of academic and farmer participants.

Journals

Both the Journal Economie Rurale and Globalisations journal are proud partners of the conference: a special issue or special forum in the journals may be organized for selected papers from this conference, appropriate to the journals' editorial lines.

Committees

Scientific Committee

Farmers:
- Courgeau, Mathieu (Confédération Paysanne, France)
- Delobel, Vincent (FUGEA, Belgium)
- Góngora, Andrés (COAG, Spain)
- Klingenmeier, Anne (AbL, Germany)
- Hallard, Emmanuel (MAP, Belgium)
- Ody, Morgan (Confédération Paysanne, France)
- Onorati, Antonio (ARI, Italy)
- Saat, Roos (Toekomstboeren, The Netherlands)
- Sevon, Aira (ESVY, Finland)

Academics:
- Borras, Jun - Agrarian Studies at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) of Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
- Galtier, Franck - Centre de coopération internationale en recherche agronomique pour le développement – CIRAD, France.
- Lécole, Pauline – Montpellier SupAgro, France
- Mamonova, Natalia - Institute for Rural and Regional Research, Trondheim, Norway.
- Murphy, Sophia - Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy – IATP, United States of America.
- Paoloni, Lorenza - Università Degli Studi del Molise, Italy.
- Rivera-Ferre, Marta G. Research Professor, INGENIO (CSIC-UPV), Valencia.
- Roudart, Laurence - Université Libre de Bruxelles – ULB, Belgium
- Van Der Ploeg, Jan Douwe - Wageningen University, the Netherlands

Organisational Committee

- Borras, Jun, Agrarian Studies at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) of Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
- Claeys, Priscilla, Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience (CAWR), Coventry University, UK
- Courleux, Frederic, Agro-economist, France
- De Waegeneer, Benoît, Secretary General of Humundi, Belgium
- Ferrando, Tomaso, Faculty of Law and Institute of Development Policy (IOB), University of Antwerp, Belgium
- Ghijselings Amaury, CNCD-11.11.11, Belgium
- Girod, Claude, farmer from ECVC
- Jacobs, Nick, Executive Director of IPES FOOD, Belgium
- Kay, Sylvia, Transnational Institute – TNI, The Netherlands
- Roudart, Laurence, Université Libre de Bruxelles – ULB, Belgium
- Schorpion, Annelies, Amis de la terre, Belgium
- Thevenot, Jean, farmer from ECVC
- Van Dyck, Barbara, Université Libre de Bruxelles – ULB, Belgium
- European Coordination Via Campesina
- ULB Support team

Footnotes

[1] As defined in the preamble of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas, UN. Human Rights Council (39th sess. : 2018 : Geneva) [2] Agroecology is referred to as per the elements of FAO High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition.