European Partnership on accelerating farming systems transition through agroecology Living Labs and Research Infrastructures.
Agroecology

Agroecology integrates ecological and social principles into the design and management of food and agricultural systems. It operates within a framework of justice and rights, aiming to reduce external inputs while maximizing sustainable interactions among plants, animals, humans, and the environment.
Living Labs

Living Labs are fundamental to the Agroecology Partnership and provide an open space where farmers, researchers, consultants and other stakeholders work together to develop, test and implement innovative agricultural practices. In these dynamic environments, participants have the opportunity to try out practices in authentic farming environments, actively participate in the process, share successful methods and accelerate the development of resilient and scalable innovations.

The Agroecology Partnership, funded by Horizon Europe, unites the European Commission and 72 partners across 26 member states, associated countries, and third countries will support an agriculture sector that is fit to meet the targets and challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss, food security and sovereignty, and the environment, while ensuring a profitable and attractive activity for farmers. The Partnership in particular pools the resources of the EC and the states involved to fund high-level research generating appropriate knowledge and technologies aligned with the core themes described below and in the Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda.

300 M€

Overall budget

Partners

Countries

The Agroecology Partnership started on January 1, 2024, and will continue until December 31, 2030

Supporting the transition to agroecology involves facilitating changes in practices to foster resilient and sustainable ecosystems, including landscape agroecology, territorial planning, decision support tools for farmers, and analyzing social aspects pertinent to the transition.

Integrating agricultural practices with value chain perspectives entails enhancing traceability of products while also developing and assessing tailored business model.

Assessing the individual and collective impact of Agroecology Living Labs (LLs) and Research Infrastructures (RIs), while identifying incentives to drive engagement in the acceleration of agroecology transition.

Developing decision-support tools for risk assessment, policy-making, and landscape planning facilitates the identification of incentives while enhancing coherence between agricultural, environmental, and other sectoral policies.

Measuring the effectiveness and progress of changes at the European level involves networking Agroecology Living Labs (LLs) and Research Infrastructures (RIs) to accelerate the transfer of locally adopted agroecology innovations.