First DiverIMPACTS annual meeting

The meeting began with presentations of some of the achievements during the first year, including the survey on crop diversification experiences, the list of barriers and enablers across case studies, and the meta-analysis on crop diversification. Progress made in the case studies and field experiments was also presented.

During the meeting, special attention was paid to interactions between case studies and work packages. Parallel sessions were organised around some of the key transversal themes that appeared during co-innovation workshops:

• The role of consumers in crop diversification
• New business models in support of crop diversification
• Collaboration between farmers at a territorial level
• Machinery, varieties and agronomic techniques for new crops and cropping practices
• Managing the complexity of diversified cropping systems
• Interplay between case studies and field experiments

Furthermore, the DiverIMPACTS Stakeholder Platform members were presented and held their first of four meetings on 4-5 June, which aim to evaluate and contribute to the project, and validate the applicability, impact, and relevance of recommendations.  

The DiverIMPACTS project partners also had the opportunity to visit some of the nearby field trials being conducted in Lelystad as well as interact and exchange knowledge and experiences with related Horizon 2020 projects LEGVALUE, diverfarming, DIVERSify, TRUE and ReMIX at a social dinner.

On the last day of the meeting, the data management plan, which is a new requirement for EU projects, was outlined and discussed.