ERIAFF Agroecology

Description of the aims and goals of WG’s activities

The starting point for the Working Group is the European partnership on “Accelerating farming systems transition through agroecology Living Labs and Research Infrastructures – AE” (2019), which recognizes agroecology as a powerful contribution to long-term responses to the climate, biodiversity, environmental, economic and social challenges that our society is facing. It also emphasizes that understanding agroecosystems better, learning to work more with ecosystem services and less with external synthetic inputs, is key to enable a transition to more sustainable farming. The potential benefits of agroecology extend beyond the farm gate. AE can support more resilient farming systems, strengthen connections between agriculture and society, contribute to the provision of sufficient, healthy and nutritious food, respect planetary boundaries, and ensure fairer rewards for farmers. AE practices need the active engagement of multiple stakeholders: farmers, researchers, policy makers who should work together to co-develop the solutions adapted to the challenges they face in their regions. AE practices should consider the diversity of farming systems and their environment and their interactions. The challenges to face are broad and involve, among others, key agricultural issues such as soil health, climate change adaptation and mitigation, biodiversity. These challenges also have a social dimension: citizens need to understand how more ecological and sustainable practices can improve quality of life while helping to reduce biodiversity loss.

Challenges to address

The Working Group aims to:

•  Share experience and increase the cooperation among Regions and Regional stakeholders (academia, research institutes etc.) on agroecological practices.

•  Build partner consortia to respond to future calls for proposals (Horizon Europe, Operational Groups EIP AGRI, Life Program, Erasmus and others of interests).

•  Contribute to the future European Agroecology Partnership: to this end we will organize meetings with the DG AGRI to be informed on the state-of-the-art.

•  Acquire, share information and find more Regions to be involved in the new Work Package dedicated to Regions in the AE Partnership.

•  Acquire and share information on the new Work Package on Education of the AE Partnership (i.e. share information with other European universities offering master’s in agroecology (i.e. Wageningen, University of Pollenzo and other universities to be identified) to understand how they work with farmers and their regional ecosystems.

•  Increase awareness of the stakeholders about agroecological practices and topics .

•  Collaborate with other networks dealing with Agroecology issues such as: Agroecology Europe, IFOAM, TP ORGANICS, SCAR AE, AKIS.

•  Map agroecological practices in Europe (this activity has already started at Italian level) .

Member list