Trans-disciplinary approaches for systemic economic, ecological and climate change transitions

Agroecology-TRANSECT aims to contribute to releasing the full potential of agroecology for European agriculture by strengthening the knowledge base for farmers and advisors and supporting decision makers.

It aims to deliver robust evidence of the benefits of agroecology on climate change mitigation, biodiversity and farm socio-economic resilience.

To achieve these objectives, Agroecology-TRANSECTsupports the transition to agroecology through co-innovation dynamics including a transdisciplinary collaboration between researchers (agronomy, animal sciences, ecology, sustainability sciences, socio-economics and political sciences) and stakeholders and mobilisation of knowledge and expertise in 11 multi-actor Innovation Hubs (IHs) which have been engaged in agroecological transition for several years.

The selected IHs reflect a diverse range of crop, animal and integrated crop-livestock systems, biogeographical areas and socio-economic European landscapes.

Agroecology-TRANSECT will: i) deliver a tool to better quantify benefits of agroecology for climate, biodiversity and farm resilience; ii) identify drivers, barriers - including social norms - opportunities and solutions to enhance adoption of agroecological principles; and, iii) launch a toolbox to deliver pragmatic recommendations for the implementation and expansion of agroecological practices by farmers, advisors, policy makers and other actors along the value chain.

Finally, Agroecology-TRANSECT will assess how policy instruments facilitate or limit the expansion of agroecology, and will provides a comprehensive set of scale-specific policy recommendations for unfolding the potential of agroecology from regional to EU levels.

By overcoming current bio-technical, social and political lock-ins, Agroecology-TRANSECT will support the achievement of relevant targets of key EU policies as the Common Agricultural Policy, the Green Deal and the Farm to Fork Strategy.