Creating a lasting legacy – update from work package 6

Within work package 6 (Strategies, methods and tools to sustain crop diversification all along the value chain), as part of task 6.1 Stakeholder Platform, we will host a series of workshops with the Stakeholder Platform starting in January. These workshops will be an opportunity to share the insights coming out of the project with the stakeholders to gather their feedback and consider how recommendations can be shared in their sectors.

For tasks 6.2 Toolbox for crop diversification and 6.3 Training and education strategy - after state of the art and the identification of outputs from DiverIMPACTS, interviews are in progress with partners and stakeholders to identify skills and knowledge needed by farmers and advisors to foster crop diversification. This cartography of skills will be used during the next partner meeting in December to build recommendations. A dedicated workshop is planned to prepare propositions that will be the heart of the strategy paper, foreseen next year.

As part of Task 6.4 Regional Management and Consumer Strategy, sevenvalue chains have been mapped in collaboration with case study actors. The process identified upstream and downstream value chain actors and their respective activities. The process seeks to understand the impact of crop diversification on value chains, particularly regarding relationships and social values. Initial findings show that with crop diversification, value chains change the arrangements and the meaning of connections and interactions among participants to attribute new value propositions. This process is now continuing with a subtask on tracing the value add of specific products. This task aims at deepening understanding the relationships and enabling factors between actors.   

As part of Task 6.5 Policy instruments and strategy, a survey is in progress to analyse the role and interactions, policy instruments in all case studies. The findings from this process will be shared at the DiverIMPACTS Annual Meeting in December and feed into subtasks to formulate policy recommendations to design agri-environment policies that foster crop diversification.