Concept & Objectives

BEATLES aspires to change the way agri-food systems currently operate and accelerate the systemic and systematic behavioural shift to climate-smart agriculture and smart farming technologies fully aligned with the ambitions of the Farm to Fork and Biodiversity Strategies, and the new CAP at regional and EU levels.

By adopting a food systems approach, the agri-food value chain is viewed as a system of interlinked components where interactions lead to systemic innovations. Through targeted selection of agri-food value chains across the EU and by engaging multiple stakeholders in the co-creation of systemic innovations, in the context of appropriate behavioural and experimental settings, the project will provide an integrative inventory of behavioural insights about the full range of “lock-ins” and levers that hinder or motivate behavioural change, including individual, systemic and policy factors.

Five different food systems representing the major crop and livestock farming systems in Europe (cereals, dairy, stone fruits, livestock, vegetables) in various EU regions (Western, Eastern, Southern and Northern Europe), will be studied to account for the diversity in agri-food systems and conditions in the EU.

The behavioural insights are used to develop transformative pathways, via business strategies and policy recommendations, to encourage transition to fair, healthy and environmentally friendly food systems. BEATLES will provide a set of business strategies establishing roadmaps for a fair shift towards climate-smart agriculture, based on environmental, social and economic sustainability assessments.

A series of policy recommendations and tools will be developed to foster behaviourally informed policy design and implementation. The active participation of multiple value chain actors, at various levels of society (public, political, professional), in the co-creation activities all along the project’s lifespan will establish a mutual understanding of the value chain - wide benefits and bottlenecks, as well as effective transformation pathways to change.

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The overall objective of BEATLES is to propose innovative, systemic solutions, based on behavioural insights, to encourage long-term and large-scale transitions to sustainable, productive, and climate-smart agri-food systems.

• Objective 1: Investigate the full range of decision-making factors that facilitate or hinder the transition of entire food systems towards sustainable, productive and climate-smart practices and behaviours.
• Objective 2: Assess the overall sustainability, environmental and socioeconomic impact of the proposed behavioural interventions.
• Objective 3: Develop fair business strategies for the transition to sustainable, productive, climate-smart agri-food systems.
• Objective 4: Formulate policy recommendations and innovative policy tools to foster large-scale and long-term behavioural shifts.
• Objective 5: Use participatory approaches to engage multiple value chain stakeholders in the co-creation of effective transformation pathways to change.