Kerstin Martens
Institute of Farm Economics
Bundesallee 63
38116 Braunschweig
Phone: +49 531 596 5102
Fax: +49 531 596 5199
bw@thuenen.de
Strengthen the sustainability of EU farming systems, through co-constructing improved and practice-validated strategies and incentives for the promotion of improved agro-ecological approaches
Agroecological approaches are increasingly discussed as an alternative to farming based on chemical inputs to address the challenges of viably producing enough food and biomass while preserving soil, water and biodiversity necessary for ecosystem services. While it is widely acknowledged that farming systems implementing such approaches generally require more knowledge and labour per hectare in comparison to conventional farming, there is a need for a better understanding of the socio-economic and policy factors that hinder or enhance the development and implementation of such systems.
The UNISECO project will enhance the understanding of the socio-economic and policy factors that hinder or enhance the development and implementation of agroecological approaches in EU farming systems by identifying the trends and drivers encouraging the involvement of farmers, actors in the value chain, consumers, educators and policy makers. The ambition and overarching objective is to strengthen the sustainability of European farming systems, through co-constructing improved and practice-validated strategies and incentives for the promotion of improved agroecological approaches.
The UNISECO project will achieve these objectives through a work programme of:
The methodological toolkit will be developed and tested in participatory case studies in 15 EU Member States with particular attention paid to different biophysical, socio-economic and socio-cultural contexts of farming systems across the EU.
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement N° 773901.
More details of the project are available on the project website: www.uniseco-project.eu
5.2018 - 4.2021
Projekt type:
Project funding number: 773901
Funding program: EU – Horizon 2020 – Societal Challenge "Food Security, Sustainable Agriculture and Forestry, Marine, Maritime and Inland Water Research and the Bioeconomy"
Project status:
ongoing