- EU agriculture faces challenges from increasing costs of fossil fuels, growing global food demand, climate change impacts, declining rural populations, and reduced public financing. - Innovation is needed to make agriculture more resource efficient and sustainable while maintaining rural livelihoods. This requires stronger research-practice partnerships, farmer training networks, and collaborative projects. - Successful examples include government programs linking research and industry in Germany, farmer-led learning hubs in Wales, and integrated territorial development plans in Southern Italy. Enabling rather than restrictive policies can promote innovation.

1. Knowledge exchange, innovation
and the promotion of more
environmentally-sustainable
agriculture in Europe
Janet Dwyer
CCRI
University of Gloucestershire, UK

2. Outline
• Challenges for EU agriculture and
rural areas
• Implications for rural actions and
resources
• Innovation – what, where and how?
– ideas for further research

3. Challenges for EU agriculture &
rural areas
• Increasing fossil fuel prices – higher global
demand, lower / more costly / less secure
supplies
• Growing global food demand
• Climate change - pressures north and south
from temperature and rainfall shifts
• Demographic change – shrinking workforce,
pressure in south
• Continuing austerity in public finances –
reduced financing for CAP and Regions?

4. Vulnerability
to climate
change of EU
regions
highest negative
impact
medium negative
impact
low negative impact
no/marginal impact
low positive impact
.No data*
reduced data*
ESPON CLIMATE study

5. Population Change
2000-2007
Annual Average
Change per 1000
inhabitants
- < -6.0 (193)
- -6.0 - -3.0 (154)
- -3.0 - 0.0 (226)
- 0.0 - 3.0 (300)
- 3.0 - 6.0 (249)
- > 6.0 (341)
These trends are set to continue,
- no data placing pressure on many poorer
Source: DEMIFER project,
annex of maps: ESPON
and some water-stressed regions
2012

6. Implications for rural activities &
resources
• EU agriculture must become much more
resource-efficient: using fewer non-
renewable inputs, conserving soil and water,
and reducing or eliminating wastes

7. • The multifunctionality of
rural spaces must be
maintained and
increased, embracing
energy generation and
non-food products plus
sustained use for leisure
and food production
• Ecosystem services
need more attention and
long-term planning

8. ‘Innovation’ – What?
Means thinking or doing something
perceived as quite new (in that
context):
• Technological change
• New knowledge
• New ways of working
• New (farming) systems
• New ways of doing policy
• New institutional arrangements

9. Innovation – Why?
• To transform farm-level knowledge
about best management strategies and
sustainability planning
• To raise standards of practice on farms,
achieving a ‘step-change’ in approach
• To develop new businesses / sub-
sectors and successfully exploit market
opportunities based upon sustainable
resource management
• To test and learn from the experience of
successful pioneers

10. How best to promote
innovation?
It is not possible to force people to innovate,
BUT
there is much evidence of the value of
fostering and promoting a climate in which
innovation is encouraged
KEY ingredients*:
• Stronger research-practice linkages
• Communities of learning: advice, training and
information (awareness-raising)
• New networking and collaborative action
*EP-funded study on sustainable competitiveness and innovation. 2012

12. Examples – research-practice
linkages
• Lower Saxony: regional government has joint
research and investment programmes with
local manufacturing and chemical industries to
develop novel crops and new products, working
with farmer organisations
• England: government-funded research
programmes encourage scientists to work with
groups of farmers, in ‘adaptive co-learning’ to
understand soil quality and hydrological cycles,
and plan for climate change (increased severity of
flooding)
• The expanding IFM community is innovating and
sharing good practice across the EU

13. Examples – training, advice &
information
There is little point forcing people to take advice:
make it attractive, enjoyable and accessible
• Dedicated ‘filière’ programmes (Italy, France,
Germany) often led by processors, use a tailored
package = training, advice, consumer
information to scale-up supply chains and increase
producer viability
• Farmer-led ‘hubs’ (Wales) encourage members to
identify and pursue training and information needs,
with peer support and access to funds
• LEADER Action Groups fund visits and
exchanges - these have stimulated farmer
demand for knowledge

14. Lessons and examples – innovative
networks & collaboration
• Bridging social capital is a key element in
micro-regional development: mixing skills,
knowledge and experience - external facilitators
may be needed (evidence: EDORA project)
• Agri-environment co-operatives, Netherlands
offer environmental gains via more flexible
approaches, designed by farmers themselves
• Integrated territorial programmes in Southern
Italy show the value of multi-actor planning and
delivery partnerships, involving a WIDE range of
regional interests

15. Innovation: How?
Enabling policy is vital
- consider the plumber…
• We need smarter working with multiple goals,
integrated planning & delivery
• We need to control and reduce the weight of
controls and bureaucracy – make policies
closer to beneficiary, more flexible
• ‘Better targeting’ does not have to mean more
constraints, higher costs!

16. 2 models from industry, worth
further research?
• BPR – ‘business process re-engineering’,
analysing processes to enable simplification,
with a strong focus upon the experiences of
all actors in the delivery chain
• Lean Systems and Systems thinking – to
enable a move away from ‘one size fits all’
approaches, to programmes which enable
tailored solutions for each individual situation,
without leading to excessive bureaucracy or
high costs

17. Thank you!
jdwyer@glos.ac.uk