The important role that small farms play in supporting rural livelihoods, conserving biodiversity and maintaining traditional landscapes, rural traditions and cultural heritage is widely accepted. Nevertheless, they are often under the radar of the agriculture policy mechanisms, which tend to focus on the very large farms and globally driven food chains.
The EU-funded SALSA project set out to examine a potentially important role of small farms – their contribution to food security. SALSA recognises the tremendous diversity of small farms and food systems in Europe and Africa, and pays particular attention to their vulnerability and resilience. Aiming to provide effective tools to guide decision-makers, SALSA uses a food systems perspective to go beyond production capacity and look at food security in terms food availability, access and control, utilisation, and stability.
Research was conducted in 30 regions (NUTS3 level) of 19 countries in Europe and Africa. The number of small farms varies from country to country, but in all the analysed regions, they were found to be strategic players in their regional food systems.
The main challenge for African food systems in the future will be to provide food for a rapidly growing population with changing diets and food preferences. Whilst the population of Europe is decreasing, with consumers demanding food that is produced in an...
The EU-funded SALSA project set out to examine a potentially very important role of small farms – their contribution to food security.
Research was conducted in 11 Eastern European (EE) regions (NUTS3 level) of 7 EE countries – Romania (RO), Poland (PL), Latvia...
Small farms in Northern Europe are found alongside some of the largest - and in some cases, most industrialised - farms in the whole of Europe.
The SALSA project conducted research in four regions (at the so-called NUTS3 level) of three countries in...
SALSA is an EU Horizon 2020 project that set out to assess the current and future role of small farms and related small food businesses (suppliers, processors, distributors) in achieving sustainable Food and Nutrition Security (FNS). SALSA studied small farms in 30 reference regions in 20...
SALSA est un projet Horizon 2020 de l'UE qui visait à évaluer le rôle actuel et futur des petites exploitations agricoles et des petites entreprises alimentaires associées (fournisseurs, transformateurs, distributeurs) dans la réalisation d'une sécurité alimentaire et nutritionnelle (SNA) durable....