GRASS CEILING will develop a context where women can drive socio-ecological transitions, that is, develop innovations in response to socio-ecological challenges and strengthen the resilience of rural areas. This is essential to deliver the UN’s goals on gender parity, realise the EU gender equality strategy, and achieve the goals of the Green Deal, the Farm to Fork strategy, the Long-Term Vision for Rural Areas and the European Pillar of Social Rights.

GRASS CEILING is a multi-actor project that will increase women-led socio-ecological innovations in farming, the rural economy and in rural communities (i.e., smart-agri skills, eco-tourism, pasture led agriculture, organic cheese, energy neutral village halls, community gardens, elderly care cooperatives). Socio-ecological innovation in farming and rural areas is a developing area in Europe, and GRASS Ceiling will co-create tools to ensure women can fully participate. Our consortia include end-users (women innovators), stakeholders and researchers in case study Member States, as well as European bodies and stakeholders who can influence EU policy such as the EU Women’s Entrepreneurship Platform (WEP), Copa-Cogeca (EU representatives of farmers and agri-cooperatives), The European Association for Information on Local Development (AEIDL), and the European Environmental Bureau (EEB). GRASS Ceiling brings together leading academic partners with many years of experience in research and practice projects that seek to empower and support women in agriculture and rural areas throughout a variety of contexts in Europe. The project involves women-innovators on farms and in rural areas who will participate in our 9 socio-ecological women innovator living labs in 9 case study countries. Our Living Labs are practical, women-led, interactive innovation initiatives that will increase knowledge and provide tools to assist women innovators and policy and support organisations at Member State and EU level.

GRASS CEILING will:

1. Establish a testbed through the living labs: Create a space for co-creation of knowledge between science, policy, business & industry, and women innovators, where women innovators discuss their socio- ecological innovative initiatives, the barriers encountered, and the support needed with relevant multi-actors to co-design changes in the rural and Agriculture Knowledge Innovation System (AKIS) to meet the needs of women; GRASS CEILING Living Labs will identify ways in which digital inclusion can increase women’s access to training and improve their capacity to undertake innovative actions to achieve socio-ecological transitions; GRASS CEILING will also offer specific (digital) tools and (online) networks for support, train and advise for rural women innovators.
2. Create tools to improve policies that impact on agriculture and rural women innovators: Establish The European Policy Forum for women-led innovation in agriculture and rural areas as a European-wide Science-Society-Policy interface; develop and use tools to assess and inform policymakers on how they can better use the innovations of women in the transition of agriculture and rural areas; Benchmark farming and rural development policies and legal frameworks to assess how effectively they adhere to the EU Gender Equality Strategy and foster women led socio-ecological innovation in farming and rural areas; Interrogate the governance structure of agriculture and rural development in the Member States and at EU level to establish policy drivers and barriers for women-led innovations.
3. Provide an analysis of the current position of women vis-a-vis the megatrends in European agriculture and rural areas, including their engagement in farm labour and farm management, regenerative farming initiatives, their labour market participation, innovative and civic activities, and an analysis of women’s current engagement in sustainable innovations in agriculture and rural development; deliver a foresight exercise with stakeholders and women-innovators to explore the current position of women, identify different and common features between and within countries and to develop a vision for women’s future role in transitioning to resilient farms and rural areas in 2040.
4. Co-create knowledge of gender norms and the drivers/ enablers of women-led innovation; Using this co-created knowledge, the Living Labs will actively support women innovators to find out about the specifics of women-led innovations in farming and rural communities, including idea development and reimagining techniques within the innovation process, network learning, accessing relevant knowledge and training, and finance.

• GRASS CEILING provides knowledge of the specifics of socio-ecological innovation by women (drivers & barriers); disseminates a foresight of their impact in 2040 (wp1); and identifies the support women need (wp3)
• GRASS CEILING gender-proofs and benchmarks national & EU agricultural & rural policies (wp4); it recommends how to empower women innovators through policy and develops tools for policymakers to assess, design inclusive policies (wp5) & tools that support women innovators (online training academy) & (A)KIS to better support women (wp6); this includes an open access online training how to lead LLs for women innovators (wp3)
• Learning & networking in & across LLs (WP3) support women to confront gender norms; engaging key mainstream actors in the LLs raises awareness and makes them ambassadors in combating gender norms in the mainstream system; dissemination to a wider public combat stereotypical images & offers new role models (wp6)
• In the LLs (wp3) we train 72 women & 18 leads, who network across LLs & key actors, who learn about the potential & specifics of women innovations

• Insights into what drives and inhibits women will provide more recognition of what women’s innovations can do for the sustainable development of agriculture and in rural and coastal areas and identify how they can be supported to do so by policy and (A)KIS
• Recommendations and tools enable policymakers and (A)KIS to support the women and their innovations
• The 72 (young) women innovators provide solutions & act as role models for others to engage; the digital tools and recommendations render policies and (A)KIS more inclusive to women also in (remote) rural áreas
• Tools, such as the online training academy with toolbox and the training how to lead women innovators LLs will empower women in the future, including in remote areas to engage in socio-ecological innovations, develop ideas into projects and implement them successfully and realice change; they also promote networking among women; key actors in the mainstream innovation eco-system will have learned to recognise women innovators, have to tools to support them effectively; policymakers have learned to develop gender inclusive policies and instruments that fit diverse rural context

The Societal Challenges addressed by European Union (EU) strategies such as the Green Deal and Farm-to-Fork require innovative solutions in agriculture, forestry and rural areas. The Multi-Actor-Approach (MAA) is a promising instrument to speed up innovation. However, the H2020 RIA LIAISON (2018-2022) has identified some deficits and inconsistencies in the interpretation of the MAA by both current and potential MA consortia and Member States’ (MS) authorities. PREMIERE will therefore foster the development of sound, coherent and well-prepared MA projects in two ways. Firstly, it will contribute to the building of project consortia that make best use of the complementary knowledge of their members during proposal writing, project activities and beyond, in particular by improving the connection between Horizon Europe (HE) MA projects and Operational Groups (OG). Secondly, through insights and tools, it will support the implementation of innovative governance and sound decision making in policy and administration for the green transition. By using the results from LIAISON and capturing ‘grass roots’ ideas from project participants, policy makers and executive agencies through stakeholder dialogue across all 27 EU MS (including with the SCAR AKIS SWG, National Contact Points and other relevant HE projects), PREMIERE will develop tools as well as training and networking events for capacity development. These will include a Serious Game, an Online Academy and a MOOC. The project will test out the effect of providing seed funding to at least eight MA organisations (mainly OGs) and prepare a handbook of good practices. This user-focused workplan, with its open science outputs, will lead to more effective EU and national AKIS. It will be implemented by a very experienced, competent and genuinely MA consortium of policy makers, executive agencies, advisors for co-innovation partnerships, AKIS actors and/or and current and potential MA project partners.

The overall aim of PREMIERE is to provide tailored options for current and potential MA project partners on how to improve the drafting of MA project proposals with a view to (a) ensuring the balanced involvement of relevant actors with complementary knowledge and (b) enabling these actors to work in a more co-creative way. The project will also work with EU and national/regional level policy makers and executive agencies (including support services such as National Contact Points) to strengthen the ‘enabling environment’ for the MAA and coinnovation.

Based on the MAA and a deep understanding of the AKIS, PREMIERE will apply five major strategies to maximise its impact on improving preparation of MA projects and enabling relevant actors to work in a cocreative way:

• Macro-regional Stakeholder Panels will better link members of the AKIS ‘family’ (WP1 ‘Connect’);
• Focus Groups with policy makers and executive agencies (WP2 ‘Governance’) will identify ways to strengthen the enabling environment for co-innovation;
• Granting Parties with freshly granted MA HE consortia and video diaries will yield insights into hurdles in preparation, inclusion OGs into MA HE projects and better uptake of project results (WP3 ‘Projects’);
• Pathways to overcome these hurdles in proposal preparation or to optimally benefit from good practices will be taken up in innovative tools such as the PREMIERE ‘Serious Game’ (WP4 ‘Tools’);
• An intense capacity development9 programme will deliver practical and proven knowledge and knowhow on co-innovation, capacities and techniques for MA project partners and trainers (WP5 ‘Skills’).

• Dialogue ‘all along the project’ with MA groups of actors, including (but not only) the four PREMIERE Macro-regional Stakeholder Panels (two online meetings per year), the HE MA project ‘family’, the SCAR-AKIS SWG, [Common Agricultural Policy] CAP Networks and National Contact Points (NCPs), will allow the consortium to ‘co-create’ with these actors a common understanding of the MA concept and of the need to improve its implementation.
• PREMIERE will develop with relevant governance actors a shared, but versatile (incorporating, for example, macro-regional specificities), understanding of current weaknesses in the governance framework and actor capacities connected with the enabling environment for MA projects. It will co-define relevant solutions and suitable methodologies for their implementation, including more effective evaluation of the project proposals and mechanisms for supporting consortium building.
• PREMIERE will identify effective and efficient ways to improve the preparation of MA projects, for example by optimising consortium formation, management and coordination strategies, and approaches to co-innovation within the consortium. Specific needs and knowledge gaps will be identified and addressed, and (inter alia) three co-design workshops with MA project actors will provide in-depth insights for the compilation of good practice recommend-ations for MA project proposal development.
• Building on the co-created, user-focused approaches to defining current weaknesses in the enabling environment (WP2) and, especially, the preparation of (in particular, EIP-AGRI) MA projects (WP3), PREMIERE will identify and collate relevant existing (online and other) tools and develop innovative new tools (in particular, a Serious Game). These will be either exploited directly by AKIS actors, with support from PREMIERE, and/or included in various online and face-to-face learning programmes.
• Apart from offering Open Access to the results from WPs 2 and 3 and to the WP4 tools identified and/or developed by PREMIERE via the HE EU-FarmBook platform and the PREMIERE partners’ websites, the project’s outputs will be incorporated into several learning programmes. Appropriate capacity development methodologies, tailored to the needs of specific user groups, will be co-identified. Actors from all 27 EU MS will take part in face-to-face and/or online learning events initiated by the project.

• The drafting of MA project proposals and in particular the involvement of relevant actors with complementary knowledge in a balanced way in the preparatory stage is improved.
• PREMIERE has contributed to the policy objectives linked to Cluster 6, as well as the European Green Deal, the F2F Strategy and the CAP, the Biodiversity Strategy and the wider bioeconomy research and policies.
• PREMIERE has contributed to the CAP cross-cutting objective of modernising the sector by fostering and sharing knowledge, innovation and digitalisation in agriculture and rural areas, and encouraging their uptake.
• Actors, policies, projects and instruments have been connected to (a) encourage the wider use of available knowledge and innovation, and (b) stimulate transposition of innovative solutions into practice and communicate to scientists the research needs of practice.

SafeHabitus will make farming a safer occupation. Farming is amongst the most dangerous jobs in Europe. Improving farmers’ and farm workers’ health and safety requires action by a range of stakeholders to empower and support them to change unsafe practices and adopt new, safer and healthier ways of working. SafeHabitus is a multiactor project that has come together to strengthen Farm Health and Safety Knowledge Innovation Systems (FHS KIS) and support the EU transition to social sustainability in farming. Our premise is that driving health and safety on farms is not about dissemination but changing habitual practices. To achieve this, SafeHabitus applies a range of novel methods; digital story telling methods with people who experienced accidents; application of the multi-actor approach to co-design farm work risk management tools; foresight analysis; analyses of consumer willingness to pay for food production that protects health and safety; bench-marking policies and elite interviews with policy makers. Our consortia include end-users, stakeholders and researchers in case study Member States. These work together in ten national COPs covering a representative variety of countries and sectors. SafeHabitus also engages with European bodies and stakeholders who provide critical bridges between EU and national / regional actors and who can influence EU policy such as the Geopa (Copa-Cogeca), CEJA, EFFAT, Oxfam, SVLFG, and AEIDL. This multi-level and transnational approach will allow SafeHabitus advance safer practices on farms across the EU.

1. Establish a multi-actor network of EU farmers and farm workers, farming organisations, farm advisors, policy stakeholders, researchers, and other relevant actors, driven by 10 national/regional Communities of Practice (COPs) representing a variety of countries and sectors and focused on co-creating knowledge and solutions that improve farmers’ and farm workers’ health, safety and quality of life [WP2].
2. Improve the understanding and awareness by policy makers, farmers’ organisations, trade unions and health authorities of farmers’ and farm workers’ health and safety at work [WP2 – 6].
3. Identify the implications of farmers’ and farm workers’ perceptions of their work on the future of the sector and hence on long-term food security [WP4].
4. Explore the potential of corporate social responsibility initiatives and bottom up innovations that enhance farmer and farm worker health and safety [WP3 – 5].
5. Develop recommendations for better performing European and national policy, and governance frameworks favouring safer and more inclusive working environments for farmers and farm workers [WP6]

• Multi-actor, participative research focused on enhancing understanding and awareness of farmers’ and farm workers’ health and safety.
• Foresight study assessing the attractiveness of farming in the context of key drivers of change and external shocks and their potential impacts on the health and safety at work of farmers and farm workers will evolve.
• Digital storytelling methods are applied to capture these impacts in the voices of 50 farmers and farm workers.
• The SafeHabitus Film Festival will be organised to raise awareness of citizens and policy stakeholders of the health and safety challenges, and opportunities to enhance quality of life and deliver on EU policies and strategies.
• Assessment of the policy and governance frameworks underpinning current Farm Health and Safety Knowledge and Innovation Systems across 10 EU members leading to the identification of the features favouring safer and more inclusive environments for farmers and farm workers.
• Assessment of the implementation of the CAP Social Conditionality measure across the EU including 10 in-depth assessments of the governance frameworks underpinning its monitoring and evaluation.
• Multi-actor evaluation of foresight scenarios (150 participants) assesses implications of current trends and support identification of policy recommendations that increase the attractiveness of farming, and likelihood of succession/takeover and support long term food security.
• Development of policy briefs (6) and policy tools supporting the adoption of measures to include farmer and farm worker health and safety considerations within policy development processes and policy governance frameworks.
• Analysis of 420 consumers willingness to pay for food production that protects and support the situation of farmers and farm workers.
• Interviews of 16 key actors and stakeholders in food value chains undertaken to identify enabling conditions for CSR market development.
• Development of a policy brief supporting the enabling conditions that underpin adoption of CSR measures. 10 Case studies undertaken (1 per COP – regional/member state) identifying relevant policies impacting on farmer/farm worker health and safety, benchmarking of these policies undertaken in relation to the scope of these policies / regulations and associated delivery (governance) frameworks.
• High level interviews completed with policy stakeholders at the EU level and results used in the EPF FHS to make recommendations for improved policy/governance frameworks at the appropriate scale (EU, national, regional).

• Enhanced understanding and awareness by policy makers, farmers’ organisations, trade unions and health authorities supporting the implementation of the European Pillar of Social Rights, and on the implications of the perceptions of their work on the future of the sector and hence on long-term food security that is supporting the implementation of EU’s Farm to Fork strategy.
• Improved policy and governance frameworks favouring safer and more inclusive working environments for farmers and farm workers to support the implementation of European Pillar of Social Rights and the EU’s Farm to Fork strategy.
• Wider use of corporate social responsibility innovations by farm businesses to support the implementation of European Pillar of Social Rights and the EU’s Farm to Fork strategy.
• Improved health, safety and labour conditions in farming thanks to better performing European and national policy and legal frameworks and innovative bottom-up initiatives to support the implementation of European Pillar of Social Rights and the EU’s Farm to Fork strategy.
• Rural, coastal and urban areas are developed in a sustainable, balanced and inclusive manner thanks to a better understanding of the environmental, socio-economic, behavioural, cultural and demographic drivers of change as well as deployment of digital, nature-based, social and community-led innovations.
• Rural, coastal and urban communities are empowered to act for change, better prepared to achieve climate neutrality, adapt to climate change, and turn digital and ecological transitions into increased resilience to various types of shocks, good health and positive long-term prospects, including jobs, for all including women, young people and vulnerable groups.
• Rural communities are equipped with innovative and smarter solutions that increase access to services, opportunities and adequate innovation ecosystems, including for women, youth and the most vulnerable groups, improve attractiveness and reduce the feeling of being left behind, even in the most remote locations like mountains.

The overall objective of Re-Livestock is to evaluate and mobilize the adoption of innovative practices applied cross-scale (animal, herd, farm, sector and region) to reduce GHG emissions from livestock farming systems and increase their capacity to deal with potential climate change impacts. To reach our aim, Re-Livestock have brought together scientific expertise in Europe and Australia and across disciplines, including co-innovation, animal feeding, breeding, welfare, farm management, environmental and socioeconomic assessment and policy analysis, to develop novel and scientifically supported integrated approaches specific for different dairy, beef and pig systems and geographic regions in the context of climate change. Strong collaboration with industry stakeholders to identify the innovations and to co-design the validation will ensure relevance and maximize the adoption of best practices. National groups of farmers (case studies) and ‘stakeholder forums’ together with a ‘European multi-actor platform’ will allow for an engaged co-design of transition pathways whilst ‘learning from innovation networks’ will allow for the testing and sharing of latest innovative solutions. A ‘community of practice’ will extend the multi-actor approach to a broad range of stakeholders.

Re-Livestock is a 37-partner consortium whose main objectives are to improve the sustainability of feeding resources for livestock across European regions, to accelerate the development and application of new breeding tools and strategies to achieve permanent and timely reductions in GHG emissions and adaptation to climate change, to evaluate system specific farm-level husbandry practices to reduce net GHG emissions and increase adaptation to different scenarios, to refine and apply innovative holistic farm-scale environmental and socioeconomic assessment tools to enhance the adoption of the practices, to enable the resilience of livestock production systems today and in the future under different climatic scenarios from regional to global scale by adopting innovations based on circularity principles, to design action-based pathways for the transition towards resilient livestock farming systems and to understand the factors influencing the adoption and efficacy of mitigation and adaptation practices with multi-actor engagement.

• Re-Livestock will identify alternative feeds with reduced carbon footprints and greater resilience in the face of heat events, drought and flood, for which the nutritional value is properly quantified, and emissions can be saved without any negative effect on animal performance or farmer income.
• In Re-Livestock by collating detailed measures of CH4 emissions and heat tolerance on animals with wider production and fitness (i.e. health, fertility, longevity) data and across breeds, a major knowledge gap on the true relationships between CH4 emissions and production, efficiency, heat tolerance and fitness traits will be filled.
• Re-Livestock will also identify husbandry practices that improve system efficiency, reduce nutrient losses and promote C sequestration.
• Re-Livestock will address the risks to animal welfare related to climate change, identifying potential hazards and associated risks for different production systems and regions.
• Re-Livestock will place a strong emphasis in facilitating the adoption of a range of innovations and practices
• We will develop and use improved and adapted emissions factors for different systems and will place particular emphasis on C sequestration.
• Re-Livestock will take a portfolio approach to enable the development of a range of tools (Re-Toolbox), that are relevant for assessing climate change and mitigation strategies, and aimed at differing levels (farmers through to scientists).
• The project will integrate several models the LPJmL model – the state of the art Dynamic Global Vegetation Model (DGVM) including crop and grass production in a consistent framework, simulating the global terrestrial carbon and nitrogen cycle and the response of carbon and vegetation patterns under climate change – to the Circular Food Systems (CiFoS)-model, a biophysical food optimization model that accounts for circularity in livestock production.
• Re-Livestock will place a strong emphasis on assessing the C footprint of conventional and novel alternative feed resources for a wide range of cattle and pigs production systems together with a deep analysis of the potential of multispecies grasslands in multiple locations.
• Re-Livestock will contribute to advanced knowledge of heat tolerance traits in cattle and pigs across a range of regions and breeds (cosmopolitan and local) that will be defined based on existing variability in the slope of (re)productive efficiency in relation to meteorological records, and will be eventually incorporated into practical breeding programmes.
• Re-Livestock will expand the use of existing tools through developing: i) a data collection framework that builds on current models and sustainability assessment tools, ii) improved LCA-based indicators, including the assessment of natural carbon sinks in livestock production systems, iii) specific animal welfare assessments in relation to climate change, iv) a model suite (CiFoS, LPJmL, LSAM, RothC) linking and expanding existing state of the art models to assess circularity in terms of biomass, land use, soil carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, water, and biodiversity, v) an improved modeling of grassland productivity.
• Re-Livestock will evaluate and enhance adoption of techniques aimed to reduce manure emissions during the whole management chain, promoting nutrient recycling and C sequestration. Agroforestry systems will be redesigned to optimize production efficiency while promoting C sequestration.

• Enhanced adoption by farmers and other relevant actors of innovations that increase the mitigation and adaptation capacity of livestock farming systems to climate change, at animal, population and farm level, therefore improving the resilience of production systems as well as animal health and welfare.
• Improved capacity to assess the environmental and socio-economic impact of mitigation and adaptation practices and options at different scales, alone and in combination.
• Consolidated transition towards a resilient livestock production with novel integrated approaches (management, breeding, feeding, local resources use,) defined for different climate change scenarios.
• Consolidated knowledge of the mitigation and adaptation potential of feeding practices.
• Consolidated knowledge of the mitigation and adaptation potential of breeding practices.
• Consolidated knowledge of the mitigation and adaptation potential of husbandry practices.
• Identification of adoption pathways for already proven effective practices.
• Improved LCA based indicators including the assessment of natural carbon sinks in livestock systems.
• On-farm tools (portfolio) assessments.
• Integration of models to increase capacity to redesign systems at different scales with stakeholders
• Better understanding and enhancing the mitigation potential of ecosystems and sectors based on the sustainable management of natural resources.
• Advanced understanding and science to support adaptation and resilience in the context of changing climate.
• Efficient monitoring, assessment and projections related to climate change impacts, mitigation and adaptation potential in order to bring out solutions for tackling emerging threats and support decision-making in climate change mitigation and adaptation policies at European and global levels.
• Fostered climate change mitigation in the primary sector, including by the reduction of GHG emissions, maintenance of natural carbon sinks and enhancement of sequestration and storage of carbon in ecosystems.

PASTINNOVA is a 19-partner consortium that will examine pastoral systems which – despite the multiple challenges they face – are able to provide a broad array of ecosystem services (ES) along with high-quality products (dairy, meat, wool and processed) in a variety of agroecological and socioeconomic Mediterranean settings. The project proposes a holistic interdisciplinary approach to improve the weak positioning of pastoral smallholders in Value Chains of Pastoral products (VCP), with particular focus on vulnerable groups (e.g. women, young farmers, and migrant workers). Based on the Living Laboratories (LL) approach, a common network on “Pastoral actors and VCP” will be established to co-create solutions for farmer organizations, farm management and VCP through the integration of needs, capacities and experiences of actors (e.g. farmers, entrepreneurs, manufacturers, retailers, policy makers, researchers). Selected IBM will be tested and implemented in small-scale settings and assessed for their sustainability (economic, social, and environmental). In this way, PASTINNOVA will deliver upscaled, accessible and profitable IBM adapted to the characteristics of Mediterranean pastoralists and territories and propose a supportive policy framework and arrangements for access to markets. PASTINNOVA envisages to upscale the role of pastoralism by pooling a rich variety of existing resources of project partners, their experience and networks, including the outputs of numerous pastoral-related projects.

The key objective of PASTINNOVA is to reinforce the sustainability, profitability and resilience of small pastoral farms, by setting up innovations, business and organizational models (IBM) to valorize their full potential as drivers towards agro-ecological transition in livestock production.

• PASTINNOVA will provide empowerment, guidelines and business plans to a variety of pastoral organizations to increase their level of entrepreneurship and bargaining power.
• The project will implement IBM and design policy interventions to adequately identify pastoral products in distribution channels and markets, thus generating market opportunities for farmers and other VCP actors. These IBM and policies will be supported by a holistic assessment of sustainability and consumer feedback, which will facilitate a shift towards ‘ethical consumption’ from aware consumers.
• Direct product sales (and e-sales through the platform) from farms or SMEs (in line with safety and Covid-19 measures) to international consumers will provide access to larger geographical scales. This approach will have positive impact also the local level, increasing the food autonomy – through short VCP – for remote territories.
• PASTINNOVA will increase the capacities of pastoral professionals through seminars, training and e-modules, including health officers for regulations about safe pastoral products with increased shelf life as elements of Mediterranean diets.
• Increased social awareness about pastoralism through dissemination and communication activities.
• Readily applicable business plans, guidelines for farmer organizations, public policy measures and VCP arrangements (specific for shorter value chains) based on assessments to motivate green entrepreneurship, increase transparency and improve the position and bargaining power of smallholder pastoralists and weak VCP actors.
• Promotion and direct sales to consumers to increase the reputation of actors, improve transparency about availability, prices and attributes of pastoral food and increase shares of added value for producers.
• Options for multifunctionality – Job creation in cottage industry, processing and valorization of secondary or by-products as well as strengthening links with other value chains (such as tourism) to supplement incomes for pastoral families through valorization of local resources.
• Capacity-building to increase innovation potential towards better understanding of how pastoralists can improve their profitability and work together without compromising – or even increasing – their viability.
• Scenarios increasing employment and labour profitability.
LCA, S-LCA will demonstrate how specific pastoral products and systems under IBM scenarios pertain to resource-use efficiency (including rangelands) and the eco-friendly profile of pastoral products.
• The project will examine the potential of IBM to reduce GHG emissions through an efficiency analysis that will allow benchmarking beneficial practices.
• Integrated assessments of biodiversity and ES provision, through the analysis of current management compared to sustainable conditions in future IBM scenarios of global change.
• Socioeconomic analysis through optimization models will deliver indicators assessing socioeconomic sustainability (profitability and employment) under a participatory choice of IBM scenarios.
• The project will consider at least four IBM with regards to valorization of waste, by-products and/or products with low commercialization and will test or implement at least one with the highest applicability and added value, followed by sustainability assessment (e.g. by-products for feedstuff and/or manure fertilization) through LCA and optimization models. PASTINNOVA will also promote e-commerce and direct sales to reduce food losses and reveal consumer preferences to assist the provision of products that pertain to their needs. In line with Circular Economy EU Plan, the project will propose IBM and short VCP that reduce the perishability of pastoral products and increase their shelf life.

• Enable access to markets, i.e. ensure access of local producers to distribution channels and markets, providing the general population with healthy and sustainable products
• Increase the income of the farmers, also including other possible agricultural-linked income sources and ensure transparency and fair pricing structure along the value chain.
• Improve sustainable food production systems with efficient use of natural resources and with eco-friendly processes with low GHG emission.
• Reduce food losses along production and supply chains, including post-harvest losses and potentially valorizing the waste left.

Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is based on a diversity of pest management measures (prevention, non-chemical control, best practices for optimizing pesticide efficiency, etc.). These are combined at the farm level to enable reduced reliance on pesticides, and therefore a decrease in the exposure of the environment and people to pesticides. Rare pioneer farmers throughout Europe are testing such IPM strategies and are succeeding in achieving good outcomes with low pesticide inputs. However the majority of European farmers still rely heavily on pesticides, with major environmental and societal impacts, because most of them have not adopted a comprehensive, farm-level and holistic IPM strategy so far. IPMWORKS will coordinate existing networks promoting IPM and launch new hubs of farms in regions or sectors where IPM pioneers are not yet engaged in a relevant network. Advisors coordinating hubs will have a major role in facilitating knowledge sharing, coaching farmers to find their own IPM solutions, and organising local demonstration activities. IPMWORKS will stimulate access to the ‘IPM Decisions’ platform and provide information on the IPM methods. It will collect data for comparing IPM strategies, and share results and dissemination material through channels widely used by farmers, broadcasting IPM success stories. It will organise training, and produce training material, targeting both farmers outside the network and advisory services, in order to prepare for the future dissemination of the peer-to-peer learning approach and the general adoption of IPM throughout the EU.

The objective of IPMWORKS is to promote the adoption of IPM strategies, based on a EU-wide network of farmers, who will both progress further in the adoption of IPM – through peer-to-peer learning and joint efforts – and demonstrate to other farmers that holistic IPM “works”; i.e. allows a low reliance on pesticides with better pest control, reduced costs and enhanced profitability.

• Coaching of farmers within hubs of Demo farms, along with the expected results of massive adoption of advanced holistic IPM by those farmers.
• Dissemination activities, including demonstration targeting other farmers and advisers, and the IPM Resource toolbox.
• Dissemination activities targeting stakeholders from the agri-food sector, and communication activities targeting the increased awareness of European consumers.
• Activities to prepare the continuation and future extension of the network.
• A significant adoption of ‘advanced’ holistic IPM by the networking farmers.
• A significant reduction of the reliance on pesticide within the network.
• An EU-wide community of partner advisers sharing an IPM-based advisory paradigm.
• Results demonstrating that ‘IPM works’.

• Extension of the IPM Farm Demo network, based on the proof of concept, the success stories, the training of trainers, and the specific work for network sustainability.
• Increased societal pressure on pesticide use.
• New market opportunities based on IPM.
• Awareness of consumers for profit sharing along the value chain.
• A general adoption of advanced holistic IPM allowing for a drastic reduction of pesticide use’, and other beneficial consequences for European society.
• Significant decrease in pesticide use in the EU.
• Lower exposure of the environment, the animals and human beings.
• Less health hazards related with pesticides.
• Increased farm profitability.
• Reconciliation of farming industry with the rest of the society.
• Improved European self-sufficiency in safe products.