A transdisciplinary research project supported by the European Commission and funding bodies in 14 countries under the umbrella of FP7 and the RURAGRI ERA-NET. How do market forces, societal demands and resource constraints interact to create opportunities and constraints for agriculture and rural areas across Europe? Where are the links between farm modernisation, rural development and resilience and how can we shape positively? And, how can we develop the relationships between rural areas and urban centres in ways that increases overall resilience? In addressing these questions the RETHINK project also explores the meaning of agricultural modernisation.
It does so at a time of potentially profound change – when the agricultural sector must finally respond to increasing resource scarcity and distributional demands, and when economies, production systems and lifestyles must be transformed. RETHINK explores the connections between the development of agriculture and the wider societal and policy goal of vibrant and prosperous rural areas, explicitly recognizing the complexity of the challenges, the diversity in situations, and the multidimensionality of strategies for a more balanced development.
The analyses to be carried out are based on a set of common research questions. These have been used to select 14 major case studies, one in each participating country. The case studies will improve our understanding of the many factors that contribute to rural prosperity and resilience. Each case is an expression of an innovative development trajectory, highlighting potential synergies between farm modernisation and sustainable rural development. A joint analytical framework will ensure the comparability of case study analyses and allow for recommendations to be made at a European level.
From Project to Paper: contributions to Books and Journals
- Ika Darnhofer, Claire Lamine, Agnes Strauss and Mireille Navarrete (2016): The resilience of family farms: Towards a relational approach. In: Journal of Rural Studies 44 (2016), 111-122.
- Ignacio de los Ríos Carmenado, Hilario Becerril Hernandez, María Rivera Mendez and Carmen García Ferrer (2016): Managing for the sustained success of organic food associations: A sustainable management approach from ‘Working with People’ model. In: Andrei Jean-Vasile (ed) (2016) Food science, production, and engineering in contemporary economies. Ploiesti: Petroleum-Gas University of Ploiesti/Romania, 25-43.
- Ignacio de los Ríos Carmenado, Hilario Becerril Hernandez and María Rivera Mendez (2016): Ecological agriculture and its influence on rural prosperity: An agricultural company’s vision (Murcia, Spain). In: Agrociencia 3 (2016), 375-389.
- Ignacio de los Ríos Carmenado, María Rivera Mendez and Carmen García Ferrer (2016): Redefining rural prosperity through social learning in the cooperative sector: 25 years of experience from organic agriculture in Spain. In: Land Use Policy 54 (2016), 85-94.
- Ignacio de los Ríos Carmenado, María Rivera Mendez, Carmen García Ferrer and Freddy Bolivar Lopez Villavicencio (2015): Sources of resilience in agricultural cooperatives: lessons learnt from 25 years of experience in Murcia (Spain). In: Asta Raupelienė (ed) (2015) Rural development 2015: Towards the transfer of knowledge, innovations and social progress. Proceedings of the 7th international scientific conference, 19-20 November 2015, Kaunas/Lithuania. eISSN 2345-0916.
- Karlheinz Knickel (2016): Rethinking rural resilience. In: Rural Connections: The European Rural Development Magazine. Brussels: European Network for Rural Development. Spring 2016, 17.
- Karlheinz Knickel, Romualdas Zemeckis and Talis Tisenkopfs (2013): A critical reflection of the meaning of agricultural modernization in a world of increasing demands and finite resources. In: Aleksandras Stulginskis University (eds) (2013) Rural development 2013: innovations and sustainability. Proceedings of the 6th international scientific conference, 28-29 November 2013, Kaunas/Lithuania. Vol 6, Book 1. Kaunas, Akademija: ASU Publishing Center, 561-567. eISSN 2345-0916.
