The role of Rural Development Policy is growing nowadays. As an EU member state Bulgaria started implementation of Rural Development Policy. The paper analyse the level of achievement of the Rural Development Programme’s objectives in Bulgaria. The programme started in 2008 and most of the...

Agricultural, quality agro-food, supply-chain and rural districts were introduced by Italian law in 2001. With reference to European structural policies, especially rural development policy, and to the districts' originality and relationship to the LEADER method and programmes, we wonder whether...

Organic farming is increasingly promoted and supported at several levels for its capability of producing safe food and public goods. It can give an important contribution to attenuating the environmental pressure generated by conventional agriculture. This paper analyses possible determinants of...

Marginal rural areas are undergoing major pressures from the effects of globalization, especially when no alternative has been found to conventional extensive agriculture and a lack of investments and vision squeezes the income of farmers. The objective of the paper is to show how Integrated...

No-tillage is a farming system aiming at minimizing soil disturbance associated with the cultivation of arable crops. This technique, together with the practices of continuous soil cover and of crop rotation, also represents one of the elements of the so called Conservation agriculture, a...

Food districts seem to be a phenomenon as widespread as they are somewhat little known and misunderstood. After thirty years of collective thinking and practice, we question what districts in the agricultural and rural domain actually are and whether we are yet to produce a scientifically...

Once the EU has perceived the strategic importance of local peculiarities to support rural development and high-quality productions, it has emphasized the need for more place-sensitive agri-food policies. The importance of socio-economic, historical and cultural factors as transfers of...