On 20 September 2023, AEIDL (European Association for Innovation in Local Development) organised an inception meeting of the BEATLES work package 5 that AEIDL leads on the transition through policy recommendations and tools.
The objectives of the inception meeting were:
- present a baseline report of Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) developments (current programming period and post 2027) with an overview of the broader context in which the project’s findings and policy recommendations are embedded.
- share the key ideas of the joint analysis of Use Cases reports related to co-creation workshops in year 1.
- present main findings of the literature review on policy.
- get informed of the progress of the guideline for advisors that the partner Naturland is working on.
AEIDL starts from the premise that there are certain contextual opportunities that will allow the recommendations developed in the BEATLES project to be put into practice. For example:
- New programming period of the CAP will start to be discussed and negotiated.
- The European Commission (EC) has established the Green Deal goals for achieving a just transition towards sustainable food systems.
- The World Bank Group has scaled up Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) as the holistic approach to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.
- New policy initiatives present an opportunity to redesign the configuration of EU agri-food systems based on behavioural insights.
The work of AEIDL in BEATLES aims to support the policy makers and implementers in the design and implementation of policy measures that support adoption of more sustainable and climate-smart food systems.
So far, Blanca Casares, Policy Expert and project manager at AEIDL, coordinating inputs to:
- open public consultation on Sustainable Food System – setting up an EU framework focusing on recommendations to encourage long-term and large-scale transitions to sustainable, productive, and climate-smart agri-food systems.
- feedback to the European Commission adoption on Agricultural products – revision of EU marketing standards.
- feedback to the EU consultation on co-creation of a transition pathway for a more resilient, sustainable and digital agri-food ecosystem.
During the inception meeting, Serafin Pazos-Vidal, Senior Expert at AEIDL, presented the research outputs by way of a systematic mapping on existing “lock-ins” and “levers” affecting the adoption of climate-smart agriculture (CSA) in the European Union. For this research exercise, he carried out a systematic mapping of 100 pieces of published literature aims to identify the role of the EU Common Agricultural Policy affecting the introduction of CSA and how this influences behavioural shifts towards sustainable food systems.
Blanca Casares summarised the policy findings from the Use Cases in terms of European, national and regional policies affecting CSA transition as well as the main barriers and opportunities. A specific briefing will be published at the beginning of 2024 in the content of BEATLES.
In addition, a more complete briefing based on the baseline report presented at the inception meeting on The road to the post 2027 Common Agricultural Policy has been published soon on the AEIDL’s website.
AEIDL will organise, in the second quarter of 2024, an EU working group meeting online with EU key stakeholder to present the results so far and to discuss how the results can be extrapolated to the European level and what would be the immediate policy actions. After the first online workshop with the EU multi-actor working group, AEIDL will elaborate a first set of policy recommendations to facilitate the transition to CSA. More information on this event and how to participate in it will be provided soon.
Author: Blanca Casares (AEIDL)
