News

The 4th french steering group was held in Paris on the 15th january. 10 participants took part in the meeting, mainly advisors and coordinators from national network of rural organizations. The agenda  was mainly focused on the preparation of a national event planned in Paris in June 2020 about the issue of farm succession. Several […]

On December 16th, 2019 the fourth meeting of the German steering group took place in Berlin with twelve people. Two interesting presentations by Simone Sterly of BioFinanz on alternative financing options and the presentation of one of our case study farms CSA Speisegut  (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJYWPawpc-s) by the founder and manager Christian Heymann provided the basis for […]

The idea came at the beginning of 2011, when two young entrepreneurs, Rita Beltrão and Filipe Verdasca, wanted to build a differentiating and innovative project in the agrifood sector in Marvão. Marvão is municipality with its centre in a medieval village located in a small montain area of São Mamede, a Natural Park  in the […]

The James Hutton Institute, as part of the EU-funded NEWBIE project (New Entrant netWork: Business models for Innovation, entrepreneurship and resilience in European agriculture), is again calling for applications for the 2019 NEWBIE Award, which highlights the work of pioneering new entrant farmers across the UK. The NEWBIE project offers an award to new entrants […]

NEWBIE Discusses Farm Incubators at Agriscot, one of Scotland largest farm industry events. November 20th. At the Agriscot farm industry event in Edinburgh, Newbie UK led an open seminar on farm business Incubators. After visiting Northern France with Newbie partner RENETA, a panel of delegates asked a room of participants “Could Farm Business Incubators provide […]

NEWBIE European Project launches 2019 Award for New Entrants The Newbie Prize is promoted to reward new agricultural business models that result from innovative ways to overcome the barriers that new agricultural entrepreneurs face when trying to establish themselves. In the Newbie project, these new entrepreneurs are defined as anyone who starts an agricultural business […]

The Institute of Mediterranean Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (ICAAM) of the University of Évora welcomed from 13-15 November a French delegation, including a member from RENETA – a French network of incubators for agricultural businesses, a member from a farm incubator of Gironde that is RENETA member and a rural press journalist. The visit is […]

Leuven, 19 November 2019. The KU Leuven Newbie team and Groene Kring organized together a field day on new business models in farming. This event frames within an exchange program between Acades and Groene Kring, both young farmers organisations in respectively Malawi and Flanders. The topic of this exchange program was new business models in […]

Together with a delegation from the Netherlands, three participants from Germany were part of the Newbie exchange to the UK from the 23rd till the 25th of October. They visited newbies in North Wales and Manchester to get to know a different perspective on handing over a farm and fresh ideas for starters. The exchange […]

What are the challenges faced by new farmers in France and which support do they receive? NEWBIE Partners Business Incubator-Gotse Delchev from Bulgaria, the James Hutton Institute from the UK and Evora University from Portugal went together with local stakeholders on an international exchange in Northern France from the 28th until the 31st of October. […]

Predominately rural region, Haloze Hills in Slovenia, hosted the 3rd National Discussion Circle meeting and an announcement of the NEWBIE Award of the Year 2018 within the occasion of the 5th Slovenian Rural Parliament (October 8, 2019) with more than 350 participants. 3rd Discussion Circle meeting was focused on supportive environment for new entrants (young […]

For the past few weeks our Belgian partner KU Leuven has been heavily involved with the topic of urban food strategies. Cities are increasingly worried about the food security of their inhabitants and many of them are creating a long term plan to tackle these issues. Belgian experts visited some example cities listed below. Paris […]

Lack of land and capital or the lack of knowledge or a network? This is what a group of European researchers and advisers want to investigate in the Newbie project. With the aim of finding solutions and recommendations for policy makers and future farmers. This time we are in Bulgaria, in the Sofia area, and […]

Pepe Aromas, a family farm located in Herdade da Azinheira and Sobral, in Évora-Portugal, is engaged in the production and marketing of Opuntia Ficus Indica and its by-products. The Portuguese National Rural Network (RRN) talked with the owners Susana Mendes and José Ferrão about the biological and sustainable project they are developing and their participation […]

Teagasc visit From the 1st until the 3rd of July 2019, 5 Belgian agricultural experts visited Ireland for the first of our Newbie exchanges. This exchange was hosted by the research centre Teagasc with a focus on meeting newbies and getting acquainted with the Irish dairy sector. The experts present for the exchange were – […]

The month of June saw two high profile Newbie events in the UK: The Start to Farm Conference and The Royal Highland Show. Early June, Newbie UK put on the ‘Start to Farm’ Conference, an intensive one-day networking and training event in Newport Wales. The event was put on with the help of local farming […]

Newbie is funded by the European Commission as a thematic network project and frames within the EIP-AGRI. The agricultural European Innovation Partnership (EIP-AGRI) works to foster competitive and sustainable farming and forestry that ‘achieves more and better from less’. It contributes to ensuring a steady supply of food, feed and biomaterials, developing its work in […]

Newbie will organize a European event on the 4th – 6th of February 2020 in Ljubljana. The goal of this event is to exchange best practices in the domain of New Business Models for New Entrants in farming. This event is co-organized with CEJA (European Council of Young Farmers). Tuesday 4th of February, a conference […]

On the 18th and 19th of June, the JRC Foresight organised a workshop on the Future of Farming in Europe. About 30 participants attended this workshop, with a good balance between researchers, farmers and other stakeholders in the food chain. The key question on the table was straightforward: what will farming look like in 2040 […]

The French Steering Group met in Paris the 5th of June. The main subject of this meeting was  “farm succession” with the goal of sharing what all stakeholders are doing on this topic. The discussion demonstrated that many tools were already developed in France to facilitate farm succession. But the discussion raised questions about their […]

Business Incubator – Gotse Delchev organized a Newbie project meeting on 22-24 May in Sofia. Thanks to a very well organized field program, the Newbie consortium and its expert board got a glance of the challenges and obstacles of new entrants in Bulgaria. The field visit started with a  travel to Samokov area where we […]

Blagoy Andonov from Limo Buls   is the first Bulgarian NEWBIE winner of the year.  Blagoy cultivates more than 120 ha arable land in a remote border region and produces forage for the farms in the area. He has overcome one of the biggest problems in Bulgaria- a very fragmented land and many owners to deal […]

Business Incubator – Gotse Delchev organized a Newbie project meeting on 22-24 May in Sofia. What results are achieved so far and what would be done were actively discussed by the partners. Access to labor in agriculture and access to markets, capital and land are challenges not only for Bulgarian new entrants but for the […]

Last week was the sustainability week, which did not pass silently at KU Leuven. Many initiatives have been undertaken, among which also the foodprint debate. The Ecoteam of the Social Science Department invited some experts on food and agriculture. Vice Rector Gerard Govers opened the evening, pointing on the importance of a foodprint debate during […]

Michael Stücke, shepherd from Westphalia, won the first Newbie Award in Germany. On May 8th the German project partners the University of Applied Sciences South Westphalia and the German Rural Youth Organization presented the award as part of an event from f3 farm.food.future. Michael Stücke started as a lateral entrant in sheep farming with only […]

New ‘Start to Farm’ conference will bring aspiring farming entrepreneurs from across the UK together for motivation, inspiration and empowerment 30 April 2019 An exciting new one-day event around innovation, inspiration and practical advice for entrepreneurs looking to start their own farming business will be taking place on 4th June 2019.  ‘Start to Farm UK’ […]

Lynbreck Croft, a 150-acre mixed habitat croft enterprise located in the Cairngorms National Park, has been declared winner of the NEWBIE UK award for New Entrant Farm Business of the Year and will be presented with their award at the Royal Highland Show 2019. The European Commission-funded NEWBIE project offered the award to new entrants in […]

The representatives of Regional livestock association, farmers, new entrants, municipalities, district agricultural offices and team of the Business incubator-Gotse Delchev participated in the discussion circle of #NEWBIE project in Kyustendil, Bulgaria on April 2019. Access to land was the focus of it, in particularly access to municipal land in mountainous area. Problems and challenges   discussed:  […]

The Newbie consortium will publish regularly practice descriptions. These descriptions outline an current challenge for new entrants, and opportunities to deal with this challenge. A first practice abstract published deals with Access to land with a farm related land fund and was developed by Wageningen University. For many start up farmers, finding and particularly financing […]

The third meeting of the steering group in Germany took place in the beautiful Thuringian Forest. The members of the steering group looked back on an exciting project year with lively discussions, short video portraits of newbies and first results from the new entrant case study collection. The University of Applied Sciences South Westphalia reports […]