The EU-funded SALSA project set out to examine a potentially very important role of small farms – their contribution to food security. 

Small farms in Northern Europe are found alongside some of the largest - and in some cases, most industrialised - farms in the whole of Europe. 

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 countries - 25 regions (at the so-called NUTS3 administrative level) in Europe and 5 regions in Africa. 

This document collects a series of fact sheets realized under the EU-funded SALSA project, which is aimed to understand how small farms and food businesses contribute to sustainable food and nutrition security (FNS).

The research findings in the fact sheets concern 30 reference regions from countries in Europe and Africa. For each region, we present:

● The regional indicators on the concentration and spatial distribution of small farms (SF), obtained also with support of the Sentinel-2 satellite data

The EU-funded Horizon 2020 “Small Farms, Small Food Businesses and Sustainable Food Security” (SALSA) project has brought together 16 partners, from European and African countries and the UN system, who have a unique blend of multidisciplinary expertise and experience from a wide range of geographical and socio-political realities. 
SALSA has aimed to provide a better understanding of the current and potential contribution of small farms and food businesses to sustainable Food and Nutrition Security (FNS).

Green Extension is an umbrella term used to describe rural advisory services which support the scaling up of sustainable agriculture. This encompasses a range of methods to promote various types of content. What these approaches have in common is a process of socio-ecological learning, i.e., supporting farmers to analyse local problems and opportunities, and test alternative practices under local conditions.

The creation of Competitive Research Grants (CRGs) is globally recognized as an institutional innovation for improving the effectiveness of agricultural research. Unlike block grants for research, CRGs are expected to bring in many top-quality proposals from a wide range of actors, selecting the best out of them and thus getting more value for money.