This paper reports the activities carried out in the first Regional Agroforestry Innovation Networks (RAINs) meeting organized in Italy where Agroforestry Innovation Network project (AFINET) project is focused on the multipurpose olive tree systems in the territory around Orvieto Municipality, Umbria Region, Central Italy.
This paper aims to analyze the role of newcomer farmers on farming system innovations. It is based on a two-months long field work in Southern Portugal’s Alentejo region. The analysis of 27 interviews with farmers and members of agricultural organizations reveals neo-farmers’ contribution to farming system innovations at three scales: the farm scale, the scale of professional networks, and the territorial scale.
This paper describes a novel approach to create a collaborative space for grassland innovations contributing to profitability of European grassland farms while preserving environmental benefits. Innovative modes of collaboration between practice and science are enabled by an international thematic network across eight European member states.
AFINET is one of the seventeen thematic networks that the European Union has financed under the H2020 framework and it is supervised by the EIP-Agri in order to foster innovation in Europe. The main topic of AFINET is agroforestry a practice of deliberately integrating woody vegetation with crops and/or animal systems and the promotion of this practice to foster climate changes. AFINET follows a multi-actor approach linked to the nine Regional Innovations Networks created to identify main challenges and develop main innovations about agroforestry.
In this paper, the authors, who have worked on developing learning systems in a range of agricultural and environmental contexts since the 1980s, take a long-term look at what has changed over the years and what may need to change in future. They consider how theories and practices have changed and their influences on each other.
This paper draws on data collected during 12 months of fieldwork in Northern Ghana. The fieldwork researched two communities in two districts of Northern Ghana and three Agricultural Development Agencies (ADA); Savanna Agricultural Research Institute (SARI), the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) and World Vision Ghana (WVG). Data collection was achieved through formal surveys, Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) and observations. A total of 120 individual interviews were conducted for the formal survey guided by the questionnaire.
In this paper administrative datasets are utilised to study farms that have converted to organic beef production in Ireland, to draw lessons for future CAP scheme design. The analysis confirms anecdotal evidence in relation to a leakage of animals from the organic to the non-organic (conventional) beef sector. As a result of this differential response across the value chain, there is sub-optimal production of organic meat relative to the investment in incentives for conversion from non-organic to organic production.
The aim of the present article is to propose a new approach to improve interactions between stakeholders, using traceability and contractualization. Faced with a crisis generated by volatility, collective action, incorporating all stakeholders, including consumers, is needed: but what exactly must be done? The article first describes the SDSC approach which combines three main concepts: Extended Demand, Extended Supply and Demand-Supply Chain (DSC), and then goes on to detail how a collaborativemodeling tool needs to be built up.
This paper presents a qualitative case study of a US based beef co-operative integrated to a VBSC. Was used an analytical framework of viability, sustainability and resilience to analyse impacts at farm-level. Our analysis highlights a number of positive effects on farm-level viability, sustainability and resilience including improvements to market orientation and price stability, among others which provide crucial insights for beef PO development in Ireland.
The objective of this paper is to show how Value Chain Analysis for Development (VCA4D) applied sustainable development concept for value chain analysis to establish a manageable set of criteria allowing to provide quantitative information, which is desperately lacking in many situations in developing economies, usable by decision makers and in line with policymakers concerns and strategies (the “international development agenda”).