Conference programme

For more information about each session in the programme, please see the session details below.

The recordings of each session are also available here.

In each session, results of the project were presented, and a significant portion was dediated to testimonies of multi-actors dynamics accompanied by the project, to policy makers and to the capitalisation of feedback from regional pre-conferences.

Session coordinator: Antoine Messéan

The general introduction will highlight global evidence of the added value and dynamic nature of crop diversification pathways. Indeed, crop diversification can support a transition towards more sustainable agri-food systems, mitigate climate change and help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Nevertheless, to reach such a target, DiverIMPACTS shows it is necessary to combine various diversification strategies that are adapted to local and evolutive conditions and needs, and to remove, through systems approaches, barriers throughout the agri-food system. The management of such diverse cropping systems mobilises new knowledge, skills, know-how and adapted decision-support tools. At the value chain scale, coordination, innovation and learning among actors are key factors to scale out crop diversification. DiverIMPACTS highlights that, overall, for agri-food transformation, one needs to shift from sectorial; centered on dominant crops; and prescriptive policies to a systemic and dynamic approach.The general introduction will highlight global evidence of the added value and dynamic nature of crop diversification pathways. Indeed, crop diversification can support a transition towards more sustainable agri-food systems, mitigate climate change and help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Nevertheless, to reach such a target, DiverIMPACTS shows it is necessary to combine various diversification strategies that are adapted to local and evolutive conditions and needs, and to remove, through systems approaches, barriers throughout the agri-food system. The management of such diverse cropping systems mobilises new knowledge, skills, know-how and adapted decision-support tools. At the value chain scale, coordination, innovation and learning among actors are key factors to scale out crop diversification. DiverIMPACTS highlights that, overall, for agri-food transformation, one needs to shift from sectorial; centered on dominant crops; and prescriptive policies to a systemic and dynamic approach.

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Session coordinators: Guénaëlle Hellou and Raj Chongtham
Session moderator: Romane Nonis

This session will address the diversity of strategies of crop diversification and will highlight the interest to combine them in a systemic and adaptive approach to reach different services and mitigate trade-offs. Several testimonies (field experiments and case studies from DiverIMPACTS) will illustrate innovative diversified cropping systems and how they deliver several services under different agricultural systems (arable and vegetable systems, conventional and organic situations) in Europe. These testimonies will also illustrate that crop diversification has to be considered (by farmers but also by researchers and advisers) as a non-linear pathway requiring an adaptive management to cope with different sources of uncertainties and exploit the full benefits of crop diversification while reducing the risks in an evolving context (climate, regulations, etc.). Feedback from regional conferences will also

1. explain the need to locally adapt the strategies of crop diversification and crop management to reach the expected services and
2. highlight the interest to consider crop diversification at a larger scale through its contribution to regional issues and requiring multi-actor and multi-scale approaches to share expected services and co-design levers to reach them.

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Session coordinators: Stephan Marette/ Philippe Baret
Session moderator: Romane Nonis

During this session, solutions (contract schemes, fair pricing, etc.) developed and tested to overcome some of the 46 barriers to cropping systems diversification, occurring all along the value chain, including the coordination between actors, will be presented. More broadly, we will underline how these barriers can be addressed by monitoring the uptake of crop diversification, reallocating public and private resources towards agroecological practices and value chains based on minor crops, providing financial support to actor networks to mitigate innovation risks, and communication campaigns to promote minor crops.

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Session coordinators: Frédérique Angevin, Stefano Canali and Aline Vandewalle
Session moderator: Florence van Stappen

Crop diversification needs systemic approaches to design locally-adapted solutions - considering local soil, climate but also socio-economic conditions – and to monitor them over time. To this purpose, we have

1. built a tool-box allowing users to find relevant decision-support tools and
2. adapted several multicriteria assessment tools to assess both expected and observed performances of crop diversification.

All these tools were designed/adapted to help monitoring crop diversification at different development phases. Testimonies of multiactors dynamics will highlight how these tools helped them during the process of crop diversification and how these approaches have contributed to their crop diversification trajectories. Issues related to databases and tools legacy will be explored during the session.

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Session coordinators: Antoine Messéan, Loïc Viguier and Didier Stilmant
Session moderator: Florence van Stappen

The session will start with a presentation of the main outcomes and recommendations of the project that could support the Green Deal objectives together with an analysis of the current policy instruments acting either as a levers or barriers to cropping system diversification. This will be completed by an analysis of the way farmers implementing crop diversification adapt or not their crop management schemes. We will then explore solutions (incentives, risk aversion measures, etc) to support farmer in the uptake of the full benefits of crop diversification strategies.

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Session coordinators: Walter Rossing and Luca Colombo
Session moderator: Daniel de Jong

Effective actionable knowledge - context-specific knowledge that assists actors in their decision-making to be better positioned to achieve their goals – production is based on mutual understanding, trust, and a common vision among researchers and societal actors. During this session, DiverIMPACTS’actors will highlight how they have reached this target, the perception of the actors involved, together with limitations they are facing and potential solutions to overcome them in terms, for example, of innovative and more flexible funding schemes.

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Moderator: Daniel de Jong

A Panel discussion, mobilising policy, value chain, institutional, AKIS, … actors, will follow up on some of the key issues addressed in previous sessions so as to identify possible avenues for overcoming institutional barriers identified during the project. Different main issues have been identified and will be debated in the corresponding sessions or in this final panel discussion :

• Change of metrics to support crop diversification and sustainable agri-food systems? New indicators to consider? How to integrate them across sectorial policies?
• Databases, Applications, Decision support tools : How to maintain their access after research-innovation project lifetime? Role of EU-level Information Systems (Eurostat, FSDN, etc)? Experiences from other sectors (Climate, Health, Environment)?
• Adaptation of AKIS to accompany agrifood system transition ?
• Public policies support and consistency between CAP instruments, first analysis of strategic national plans regarding cropping system diversification?
• How to stimulate, support the coordination of value chain actors ?
• How to support Research-Innovation multiactors projects before, during and after their lifetime ? Which flexibility could be envisaged to take on board needs from actors expressed during the course of a project? 

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