The lack of young people engaged in agriculture threatens future food security and social balance. The agricultural sector and rural areas are experiencing an aging demography. The data confirm the global historical trend of a shortage of young people deciding to pursue careers in agriculture and remaining in rural spaces. Understanding young people’s views on agriculture is the key to supporting their participation in the sector by examining the unattractive factors that influence their perceptions. This study aims to explore these factors through a literature review of the past 10 years, applying the PRISMA model. We used VOSviewer to identify the key elements linked in a co-word map and revealed four clusters that mainly influence young people’s perceptions. The reviewed papers are from developed and developing countries, as our approach seeks to transcend the national boundaries that often delimit analyses on generational renewal. The study brings out the common factors that affect youth’s choice in agriculture, highlighting their perceptions and aspirations. The discussions and conclusion aim to provide a different perspective to understand the decision-making process of young people toward an agricultural career.

Ensuring global food security is an increasingly complex challenge, prompting researchers and the agri-food industry to explore biotechnological solutions. Over the past decade, New Genomic Techniques (NGTs) have transformed plant breeding by enhancing yields, disease resistance, and climate adaptability. Despite these innovations, NGTs remain regulated under the same framework as Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), while the European Union (EU) seeks to establish an alternative regulatory approach. Advances in agricultural biotechnology present complex challenges, involving a wide range of stakeholders, conflicting opinions, and vast amounts of information. As part of the regulatory review process for NGTs, the European Commission (EC) launched a public consultation in 2022 to support the revision of existing regulations. This study applies Association Rule Mining (ARM) to analyze the consultation’s key concerns and policy preferences. Stakeholders—including industry representatives, environmental organizations, scientists, and citizens—have voiced differing opinions. ARM enables the identification of recurring patterns in their responses, highlighting three key themes: sustainability, risk assessment, and transparency. Some consider sustainability an inherent advantage of NGTs, while others view it as irrelevant or as a justification for stricter regulations. Risk assessment and transparency are widely recognized as essential but approached differently—some downplay their importance, while others advocate for more stringent oversight. Additionally, a strategic neutral stance emerges, with certain stakeholders prioritizing risk assessment and transparency without expressing a position on sustainability. The new sustainability-driven regulatory framework may face resistance from those demanding more in-depth evaluations before recognizing NGTs as a sustainable solution. Finally, this paper discusses critical issues related to public consultation processes, highlighting challenges and opportunities in shaping an inclusive and effective regulatory framework.

Generational renewal in agriculture has long been declared a priority of European policies, yet little critical attention has been paid to how the problem is represented and to the implicit assumptions that orient instruments and strategies. This study focuses on the first-settlement aid for young farmers (Measure 6.1) of the Rural Development Programme 2014–2022, one of the most prominent policy tools introduced by the European Union to attract new generations into farming. The analysis comparatively examines how Italian regions have implemented the measure through eligibility requirements, selection criteria, and the exercise of regional discretion, highlighting the diversity of policy implementation. Adopting Bacchi’s What’s the Problem Represented to Be? (WPR) framework, the research focuses on how generational renewal is represented and which subjective, discursive, and lived effects – including unintended ones – emerge from such representation. Methodologically, the study combines qualitative content analysis of regional calls with cluster analysis, enabling the identification of five distinct regional approaches (clusters) to generational renewal, while also capturing commonalities and divergences. Results reveal that the dominant representation constructs the “desirable” young farmer primarily as the successor who has already inherited the family farm, while marginalising other categories such as new entrants (young individuals with no family farming background) and potential successors (those who may inherit but have not yet done so). Finally, the study deconstructs dominant CAP paradigms on the topic and argues for more inclusive and differentiated strategies capable of recognising multiple entry pathways and sustaining identity-building processes.

Generational renewal is increasingly recognised as a crucial challenge for the future of agriculture. Recent literature has placed growing emphasis on the importance of farmer identity as a key dimension shaping young people's interest in agriculture, their approach to farm management and their long‐term commitment. This study contributes to the debate by proposing an analysis of generational renewal through the lens of identity theory. Specifically, the research explores how farmer identity is constructed, negotiated and validated by three distinct groups of young people: successors, potential successors and new entrants. Twenty semi‐structured interviews have been conducted with young people as categorised above in rural areas of Sicily. The study identifies four cases that illustrate how differences in self‐concept, alignment with symbolic role standards and processes of internal and external recognition shape individual engagement in agriculture and generate concrete implications at the farm level. Results reveal four distinct identity pathways— Redefining, Held‐Back, Hesitant and Self‐Made —each associated with different forms of engagement and farm‐level outcomes. Accordingly, this study provides policy‐relevant insights for each case, emphasising the need to promote initiatives that support young individuals in developing renegotiated and enduring farmer identities.