Project profile & approach

The challanges

Today our planet faces many important challenges, including climate change, increased pressure on natural resources, degradation of soil and water quality, as addressed in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Among these challenges is the need to provide sufficient and healthy food as well as other bio-resources, in a sustainable way. Agroecological farming systems refers to considering the complex ecological interactions occurring on the farm: this agroecosystemic view of agriculture considers all of the services provided by farmland to humans – soil, water and air quality, pest control, disease control, maintenance of habitats, etc. – in addition to food production. Such considerations have two main consequences that will be particularly investigated in ALL-Ready: i) even if agroecological principles are generic, agroecological farming systems are site-specific according to various natural resources, social and economic conditions that justify sharing experiences and networking; ii) due to ecological constraints, agricultural products are diverse and more heterogeneous, producing diverse, novel products for future. Increasingly plant based diets demand re-thinking not only in the agri-food chain from field to consumers, but in the endeavor of moving towards production systems with high recycling of nutrients, no use of pesticides and low greenhouse gas emissions. Organic farming may fully or partially rely on agroecological principles, and is considered here as well. All agroecological levels from gene to territories are considered, including agroforestry, crop arrangements and ecological infrastructures up to food system level.

Living Labs and Research Infrastructures

A key assumption behind ALL-Ready is that Research Infrastructures (RIs) and Living Labs (LL) are instruments that have significant potential to contribute to amplifying the transition to agroecology in Europe. More information on RI and LL can be found here.

ALL-Ready will prepare the ground for a European network of agroecological LLs and RIs through a structured approach that involves:

• developing a common agreement on the mission and vision for the network,
• mapping and analysis of the entities to be included in the network (agroecology LLs and RIs as well as other relevant open innovation arrangements, such as research farming system experiments),
• plans for sustainability, capacity building and training, data management, dissemination to be included in an implementation plan.

This will be done through a participatory approach, involving end users and other stakeholders, and considering the factors that favour the development and upscaling of agroecological practices.

Stakeholder engagement will underpin ALL-Ready activities. Co-creation through active involvement of stakeholders is ensured through a series of workshops that aim to understand and to respond to stakeholder needs for each type of activity to be carried out within the Network.

Moreover, a pilot network will be put into place, initially with LLs/RIs related to consortium members and later expanded to others, that will provide information on their needs and expectations and then feedback on the activities put in place during the project. This will allow a refining and improvement throughout the process which allow fit for purpose activities.