The conference was designed to highlight how cropping system diversification can be a key lever to support agroecological transition, and explored ways to achieve diversified agri-food systems for improved productivity, delivery of ecosystem services, resource-efficient and sustainable value chains as well as more integrated sociotechnical systems facilitating co-innovation across research and development, education, advisory, business and policy sectors.

Speaking just before the conference, DiverIMPACTS coordinator Antoine Messéan, from France’s INRAE, tells the introductory video: “DiverIPMACTS is about fostering crop diversifications towards more sustainable agri-food systems in Europe. We know that crop diversification has the potential to maintain a high level of productivity while reducing negative environmental impacts and delivering ecosystem services. But so far it has not been taken up by farmers, so why?

“It is because it is hindered by a series of technological, organisational and institutional barriers all along value chains but at the political level as well. And over the past five years we have been addressing those barriers and come up with tools and recommendations that include assessment tools to help farmers to drive their own pathway to diversifications and solutions to remove barriers and for coordination along value chains and also political recommendations, especially for the CAP reform.

“And last but not least, to drive new research priorities in order to foster crop diversification because we need to change the way we are doing research. And today at this conference we are sharing the results of the project and will discuss those recommendations with stakeholders so as to ensure they will be taken up and implemented in the future.”

For more information (click title to access video):

• Introduction
• Welcome address and general introduction
• Session 1 - Interconnecting different diversification strategies to enhance ecosystem service delivery
• Session 2 - Barriers to crop diversification all along the value chain and how to overcome them
• Session 3 - How to support actors decision making towards cropping system diversification
• Session 4 - Crop diversification - a key lever to reach European Green Deal objectives
• Session 5 - How to produce actionable knowledge through multi actor research and system approaches
• Project legacy - how to go one step further?
• Conclusions
• Read more about the conference on the DiverIMPACTS website here