The food of Europeans depends on an endangered species - the farmers.

The food of Europeans depends on an endangered species – the farmers. Every year thousands of them retire, and fewer and fewer young people are taking their place. Farmyards in rural areas are closing, land is being leased to larger farms, and rural schools are quietly shutting down. The result is fewer and fewer people producing food, more imported products on supermarket shelves, and a profession that is gradually fading, writes the POLITICO in its analysis. This is a slowly developing crisis that Brussels will face when Agriculture Commissioner Kristoff Hansen presents the EU's Strategy for the Renewal of Generations in Agriculture – a plan that aims to retain the next generation of food producers before they give up even before they start. Young farmers have been urging lawmakers to take action for more than a decade, says Peter Middendorf, the 25-year-old president of the European Council of Young Farmers (CEJA), in a phone call while returning from his fields with his ...