Case Studies

Here you can find a summary table with the case studies used throughout this handbook. By clicking the link, you can find a more detailed description of each case study.

Case study	Country	Role of LA	Line of summary
The City of Leuven allocates public land to sustainable farmers	Belgium	Landowner	The city of Leuven shifted from selling its local farm land to allocating it for local food production, offering plots for organisations or individuals to set up agricultural initiatives that are sustainable, economically feasible, innovative, and adding value to the local community.
The City of Ghent’s vision on public farmland	Belgium	Landowner and Regulator	The city of Ghent is currently creating a vision with regard to the local farmland owned by the local Public Centre for Social Welfare (OCMW) with the goal to protect and strengthen open space and agriculture in Ghent.
Mouans-Sartoux: from organic food for schools to land and food policy	France	Landowner, Regulator and Facilitator	The Mouans-Sartoux municipal council gradually converted a municipal estate into a farm producing vegetables for the town’s school cafeterias. In addition, the council has deployed a proactive land policy to favour the creation of new farms on its territory.
Ohey municipality: distributing public agricultural land more equitably among farmers	Belgium	Landowner and Regulator	The municipality of Ohey has about 90 ha of agricultural land in the form of of "essarts" (private domain of the commune). These are small parcels of about 0,25 ha which were historically intended for use by poor families for subsistence agriculture. Over time, the land came to be leased to less than ten professional farmers. In 2015, the municipality’s council created a new regulation to reallocate the land. Under this new regime, more than 30 farmers now benefit from the essarts land.
Inclusive food aid in Florennes, Walloonia	Belgium	Landowner and Facilitator	The project (in progress) consists of providing food aid to 400 families in the municipality of Florennes from vegetables produced on the land belonging to the Social Welfare Center.
The Cooperativa Co.R.Ag.Gio and renewed uses of public farmland in the Rome area	Italy	Landowner and Regulator	The Cooperativa Coraggio campaigns for a better use of public land while also developing a pilot agricultural project on 22 ha belonging to the municipality of Rome. This exemplary project associates social, organic, multifunctional agriculture by young people and capacity development facilities.
Red Terrae: the network of municipalities working for sustainable land use	Spain	Facilitator	Red Terrae is an inter-municipal network of about 40 local authorities throughout eight regions of Spain. The network supports local authorities to foster sustainable agriculture and food practices within their local contexts, notably through the establishment of local land banks.
Boscos de Pastura: using grazing for wildfire prevention	Spain	Facilitator	The local authority Consorci del Lluçanès and the association of local forestland owners set up the « Boscos de Pastura » (grazing forests) initiative to facilitate access to private forests as grazing lands for local farmers and to prevent wildfires.
Stewardship and management of common pastures in Romania	Romania	Facilitator	The local authority of Sancraiu facilitates access to land managed in a common stewardship to consolidate the activity of a young sheperd in rural Transylvania.
Glasgow Community Food Network	UK	Facilitator, Landowner and Regulator	Three multisectorial and integrated actions are carried out in this case study, led by policy-makers at the Glasgow City Council and local community organisations grouped under an umbrella local network - the Glasgow Community Food Network - GCFN
Cornwall County Farms	UK	Regulator	The Cornwall Council established an integrative and participative policy to manage its Farms Estate and promote the development of land-based businesses and services.
Grenoble Alpes Métropole protects farmland for local development	France	Regulator (and Landowner)	The Grenoble metropole has long had proactive land and agriculture policies. In particular, they have used regulatory tools at their disposal to create protection perimeter for agricultural and natural areas
Remobilising abandoned lands in Moëlan-sur-Mer	France	Regulator (and Facilitator)	Since 2013, the commune of Moëlan-sur-Mer has been working on reclaiming fallow land along the coastline to encourage the development of sustainable agriculture. Using a “rehabilitation of uncultivated land” procedure from the Rural Code, local authorities were able to to identify an area of 120 ha of fallow land and call on owners to recultivate them.
Acting on farmland at the department level: land banking and plots exchange in Ille-et-Vilaine	France	Regulator	The department of Ille-et-Vilaine (Brittany region, France) uses different levers such as temporary banking of land and mutually agreed exchanges of plots to encourage new farmers to set up agricultural activities and to support local farms.
Agricultural Programme of the City of Hannover	Germany	Regulator	The agricultural programme is a political action plan of the city of Hannover to achieve the following objectives: coordinating spatial planning and development with farming, maintaining economically viable farms, supporting the conversion to organic agriculture, establishing regional marketing of food and fostering nature and landscape conservation.