The BEATLES project is making strides in promoting CSA systems through co-creation workshops. Those workshops, held across each use case regions, bring together stakeholders to address challenges and foster sustainable practices in agriculture. The recent workshops held in Lithuania, Germany, Spain, Denmark, and the Netherlands have facilitated discussions on each use case such as wheat, dairy, apples, pigs, and potatoes &onions.
Lithuania – Wheat
On March 23, 2023, the 1st workshop of the BEATLES project was held in Lithuania by our partner AgriFood Lithuania. The event brought together stakeholders, who discussed the challenges when it comes to adopting sustainable practices within the wheat use-case of Lithuania! The workshop was an excellent opportunity for participants to share their experiences, learn from each other and gain insights on how to adopt sustainable practices in their operations! All participants left with a renewed feeling of commitment to promote climate-smart agriculture.
Germany – Organic dairy
The 1st BEATLES co-Creation workshop for the Use Case organic and fair dairy in Germany was held on the 19th of April 2023 in Palling, Southern Germany. The activity was organised by Naturland Fair. The group was compiled of different actors within the value chain: feed industry, farmers, advisors, breeding association, dairy, governmental officials, and retail. The workshop marks the kick-off of the German Multi-Stakeholder Plattform within the BEATLES project. Through this group, the project aims to gain more practical relevance by working closely with various practitioners along the value chain. Within the workshop, following topics were discussed: definition of climate-smart agriculture in the context of this organic and fair dairy Use Case, challenges in the implementation of climate-smart organic practices with a special focus on societal and political barriers as well as a presentation of the first results from the project.
Spain – Apple
The 1st BEATLES co-Creation workshop for the Use Case apples in Spain was held on the 25th of April 2023 by our partner INTIA. INTIA brings together around twenty professionals from the organic apple sector in Navarre at its experimental farm in Sartaguda to study the challenges facing this production sector in the transition to Climate Smart Agriculture systems.
The workshop began with the explanation the objectives, the different work packages and European case studies. The results of the interviews and surveys carried out were then presented, in order to gain knowledge about the attitudes of different actors in the food supply chain towards CSA practices and initiatives. The influence that public policies can have on the case study for the adoption of more sustainable practices was also discussed.
It is worth noting the great diversity among the attendants, who are part of the entire value chain: advisory, policy, primary production, processing, distribution, and so on.
Denmark – Pig sector
Food & Bio Cluster Denmark hosted their 1st co-creation workshop in the Danish Use Case on May 3rd. The workshop aimed to involve stakeholders from the entire value chain within pig production to discuss the transition to more climate-smart pig production. The preliminary results of the BEATLES project showed that economics & mindset play a big role in people’s willingness to produce and buy sustainable products. One of the take-home messages of the workshop was that, although innovation is important, the solutions are present. Thus, the streamlining of the practices, plus the altering of the mindset, throughout the value chain, are the keys to making a difference. It was also agreed that the policy framework, or rather the predictability of it, is crucial to support sustainable practices.
The Netherlands – Onion & potato
Last but not least, on May 24th, our partner Delphy organised the 1st co-creation workshop in the Netherlands, focusing on potato and onion production. A diverse group of stakeholders within the sector, from growers to buyers and government, attended. Objective of the workshop was to capture the priority issues discussed by the stakeholders regarding climate smart agriculture (CSA) attributes closely connected to the use case, including barriers, incentives, and opportunities. Main outcome of the workshop was that there are already good examples of CSA production in the Netherlands. But that scaling up this CSA production is hindered by several aspects in all parts of the value chain, like product price ratio, lack of cooperation between different partners in the chain, and subsidy programs can be better tailored to support CSA. But we also see that stakeholders are interested in the development of fair and transparent business models and willing to work on CSA practices.
Those workshops were the first in a co-creation process, follow up workshops will follow yearly to the end of the project.
