European agriculture is facing increasing economic, environmental, institutional, and social challenges, from changes in demographic trends to the effects of climate change. In this context of high instability, the agricultural sector in Europe needs to improve its resilience and sustainability. Local assessments and strategies at the farming system level are needed, and this paper focuses on a hazelnut farming system in central Italy. For the assessment, a participatory approach was used, based on a stakeholder workshop.
The study proposes a knowledge-intensive and qualitative research methodology based on researcher-farmer participatory approach, with the aim to improve the state of knowledge on organic rice, explore the yield potential and variability, and identify the successful agronomic practices. A wide range of cropping systems placed in North Italy were monitored and analysed during three years by a multi-actor network.
Proven that the adoption rate of a new product is influenced by the network characteristics of the early adopters, the aim of this paper is to find the network features of the early adopters associated with high adoption rates of a specific new practice: the use of biodegradable mulching films containing soluble bio-based substances derived from municipal solid wastes. The study simulated the diffusion process by means of an agent-based model calibrated on real-world data.
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic will vary for different groups of rural population, with the highest impact expected to be on farmers and other vulnerable groups, especially women and youth. Targeted support is feasible only by activating a network of actors or organizations within agricultural innovation systems (AIS) and promoting customized technologies and practices suitable for location specific contexts.
The research programme URBAL (Urban-driven Innovations for Sustainable Food Systems) (2018–2020), funded by Agropolis Fondation (France), Fondation Daniel & Nina Carasso (France/Spain), and Fundazione Cariplo (Italy), and coordinated by CIRAD (France) and the Laurier Center for Sustainable Food Systems at Wilfrid Laurier University (Canada), seeks to build and test a participatory methodology to identify and map the impact pathways of urban-driven innovations on all the dimensions of food systems sustainability.
The paper analyses the determinants of farmers’ adoption of innovations and studies the effect of the source of information and the connection with agricultural research on the contribution of innovation to farm performance. The paper uses primary data collected ad hoc in the Province of Bologna (Emilia-Romagna, Italy) and analyses it through an econometric analysis. The results indicate that structural factors and farm specialisation still play a relevant role in innovation adoption.
Industrial agriculture and its requirement for standardized approaches is driving the world towards a global food system, shrinking the role of farmers and shifting decision-making power. On the contrary, a holistic perspective towards a new food-system design could meet the needs of a larger share of stakeholders. Long-term experiments are crucial in this transition, being the hub of knowledge and the workshop of ‘participation in’ and ‘appropriation of’ the research in agriculture over a long term.
Innovation is considered as one of the key drivers for a competitive and sustainable agriculture and the European Commission highlights the importance of tailoring innovation support to farmers’ needs, especially in European Rural Development Policy (reg EU 1305/2013). The scientific literature offers a wide panorama of tools and methods for the analysis of innovation in agriculture but the lack of data on the state of innovation in the farms hampers such studies. A possibility to partially overcome this limit is the use of data collected by the Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN).
The latest comprehensive research agenda in the Journal of Agricultural Education and Extension was published in 2012 (Faure, Desjeux, and Gasselin 2012), and since then there have been quite some developments in terms of biophysical, ecological, climatological, social, political and economic trends that impact farming and the transformation of agriculture and food systems at large as well as new potentially disruptive technologies.
Since the Green Revolution, worldwide agriculture has been characterized by a typical top–down approach. The degree of autonomy, creativity, and responsibility of farmers has been limited by the continuous external inputs of chemicals, machinery, advice, subsidies and knowledge. The issue of sustainability has brought complexity and uncertainty to this mainly linear process of innovation, steering agriculture toward alternative models. Agroecology represents an innovative paradigm of agriculture in which external inputs are minimized, and the assets of the farm are greatly valued.