RAS

Farmers and small operators are often in a weak position in the value chain. They lack bargaining power, face barriers to accessing markets, and struggle to achieve a fair income. At the same time, due to growing public awareness of the environmental crisis, and the rise of diet-related ill-health, many consumers want to conveniently access high quality, healthy and sustainable foods. In response, many innovative consumer-driven opportunities for farmers to access markets are now available. The aim of this project is to facilitate collaboration between farmers, consumers, local governments and other actors to scale up short agri-food chains which rebalance farmers’ position, create win-wins for producers and consumers and drive innovation in territorial food systems. It does this in five key ways. First, it develops a ‘living library’ of 32 emblematic good practice examples from 12 countries which demonstrate how farmers can access consumer-driven opportunities to improve their incomes and rebalance their position in food chains. Second, it delivers a knowledge-based suite of activities to support farmers and small operators to access information on consumer demand and improve their capacity to connect with consumers. Third, it provides new insights and guidance on the costs and margins for each link in the supply chain, demonstrating opportunities for improved incomes for farmers and small operators and reduced costs for intermediaries. Fourth, it designs a ‘farm-to-fork procurement toolkit’ for public authorities in order to improve sharing of experience and help them design appropriate tenders for healthy and fresh food supplied by small-scale producers and also to support farmers to know how to access these opportunities. Fifth, it maximises the impact of all the project’s activities through effective communication and dissemination including policy engagement in order to create a more enabling environment for collaborative agri-food chains.

SWIFT’s overall objective is to foster transitions towards sustainable, balanced and inclusive development of rural areas in Europe by favouring the deployment of women-led innovations (WLI) acting for change in agriculture, promoting gender equality in rural areas from an intersectional, feminist and human rights-based perspective. SWIFT pursues this by engaging in applied feminist innovation studies research better reflecting feminist and human-rights based approaches. This will enable to facilitate a change of framing in agriculture to address the social realities that perpetuate inequalities. Women, in all of their diversity, play a central role in agriculture and food systems. Their knowledge, skills, labour and leadership, however, are frequently invisible and undervalued. At present, the European agricultural sector is characterized by high levels of inequality. The multiple barriers to gender equality in European agriculture are socio-cultural, economic and political, and perpetuate women’s inequality within the mutually constituting ‘productive’ sphere of farming outputs and in the ‘reproductive’ sphere of unpaid and undervalued labour that occurs on the farm, in the family and community. Some examples include i) unequal access to land and productive resources, that shape and limit women’s participation in agriculture, constructing gender roles and identities and resulting, among other things, in ii) women under-representation in agricultural organizations and holding very few decision-making positions; iii) current agricultural education and training that reinforce stereotypes about farming as a male activity and which do not encourage young women to pursue agricultural careers; iv) social closure, characterised by interactional dynamics of discrimination, exclusion and/or harassment, that lead to women being discouraged from taking up tasks or acquiring relevant farming skills. The structural gender inequalities in agriculture are acutely felt by social groups that experience multiple and intersecting forms of oppression, including migrant farmworkers and LGBTIQ+ farmers. These intersecting forms of discrimination have not yet been extensively documented, however, they constitute significant barriers to transformative change in rural areas in Europe. One of the main difficulties for gender mainstreaming in agricultural policies is the framing of food. The EU’s primary commitment to purely economic measures of viability of farming businesses reflects the idea of food as a commodity that does not include the forms of farming that tend to be led by women. The framing of food as a commodity also fails to capture the commitments that have been made to the realisation of the right to adequate food. SWIFT will contribute to gender mainstreaming in agricultural and food policies by providing theoretical and practical tools (feminist farm viability indicators and Gender responsive budgeting in policies) to favor a change of framing in those policies that will facilitate the development and implementation of alternative framings of food. Methodologically, SWIFT adopts a feminist, human rights-based, participatory and inclusive research methodology that applies an intersectional perspective, thereby rendering visible diverse experiences of inequality and giving a voice to those who are most marginalised. SWIFT aims to reinforce and amplify innovations led by marginalised actors to confront unequal social, economic and political structures in European agricultural and food systems. We defined WLI in agriculture as grassroots innovations built to challenge structural inequalities in agriculture in rural areas. Many of the WLI that are the focus of SWIFT have emerged under the broad umbrella of alternative food networks and have demands connected to the human right to adequate food. Through the analysis of WLI, SWIFT will study if and how agroecological approaches to food systems can promote gender equality in r

The current situation in Europe clearly indicates that major changes are needed to develop sustainable agricultural and food systems. In this respect, agroecology is increasingly seen as an important pathway as it designs, develops and promotes the transition towards sustainable farming and food systems. Although a certain development of agroecology and its different facets in Europe can be stated, it remains so far too limited to allow a successful transition to sustainable agriculture and food systems. The present project will contribute to agroecology research and innovation development through different strategic objectives. AE4EU will develop a road map and framework for a European network of agroecological living labs (LL) and research infrastructure (RI), and other relevant actors. Major avenues for this will be the mapping of local, regional and national state of the art and initiatives in different European countries, provide also a more comprehensive and detailed overview of how agroecology is understood. This will lay out the ground to connect relevant actors of identified initiatives, LL, RI, funding schemes and policies. Further, the project will identify and assess past and ongoing agroecological LL and RI initiatives, and how they derive relevant and successful approaches for transition to agroecological production and food systems. Moreover, AE4EU will identify and analyse policy frameworks that include elements of agroecology and provide recommendations for future reinforcement and adaptation. The project will as well work out propositions for potential changes and improvements for enlarged and complementary funding of public and philanthropic/private funders to enhance research, practice and innovation of agroecology in Europe. The overall goal of AE4EU is through reinforced networks development and connection of a large diversity of relevant actors across Europe accelerate the transition to sustainable agriculture and food systems.

African Swine Fever (ASF) is one of the most important viral diseases affecting swine, with a serious socio-economic impact. It is present in more than 13 countries in Europe (10 in the EU), 28 sub-Saharan African countries, and 2 Asian countries, China and Mongolia. No vaccine is available and recent incursions in Europe and Asia are jeopardizing the pig industry worldwide. Control of ASF is based on early diagnosis and the implementation of strict sanitary measures. However, measures taken by affected countries have not been sufficient to stop spread. The objective of VACDIVA is to solve the ASF problem in Europe and affected countries through innovation efforts. VACDIVA will provide (1) Three safe and effective pilot vaccines for wild boar and domestic pigs ready for registration; (2) validated companion DIVA tests and 3) cost-benefit and effective surveillance and control-vaccination strategies, with field trials in Lithuania and Kenia. Two world leader companies in vaccine production and ASF diagnostic kits will provide production of the new vaccines and DIVA tests. Epidemiological modelling of worldwide scenarios will be offered in a portfolio of services to help animal health authorities control and eradicate the disease. This project will provide policy makers valuable decision support tools to better prevent and control ASF. VACDIVA counts with the expertise of two world ASF Reference Laboratories (OIE and FAO), the EU reference laboratory (EURL), six EU national Reference Laboratories (of 6 out of the 10 countries currently affected by ASF) and four prestigious ASF research institutions. Participation of Russian, Chinese and African laboratories will provide useful support, increasing acceptance of the vaccines. Active involvement of pig producers, agricultural associations and International agencies like FAO will enlarge the impact of communication, dissemination and training activities.