A farm typology of ecological farm types was developed, made by the combination of main archetypical farming approaches, associated with main agroecological principles (Rega et al., 2021). The five ecological farming approaches in the LIFT typology are: conservation agriculture; low-input farming; integrated/circular farming; organic farming; agroecological farming. Farmers who do not perform well with respect to any of the identified principles are grouped under the standard farming label. A protocol was elaborated to classify farms using the EU Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN). The free user-friendly LIFT typology-tool allows an easy application of the LIFT typology and, additionally, enables comparing the multi-performance of any given farm with those of a defined peer group.
Farmer decision-making towards uptake of ecological practices was investigated based on farmers’ interviews and data from the specific LIFT large-scale farmer survey that was administered to over 1,600 farmers across 13 European countries. Findings show that decision-making towards uptake of ecological practices is complex and shaped by internal forces (ecological perceptions of farmers) as well as external forces (supply chain) (Barnes et al., 2021). The free user-friendly LIFT adoption-tool enables users to input farm data to obtain the likelihood of that farm being an adopter of ecological practices.
Four dimensions of farm-level performance, namely technical-economic, social (working conditions), environmental, as well as employment-related performance, have been assessed and compared along the gradient of ecological approaches implemented on farms, using FADN and the LIFT large-scale farmer survey (Davidova et al., 2021; Hostiou et al., 2021; Niedermayr et al., 2021 and 2022; Van Ruymbeke, Dakpo et al., 2021). In addition to assessment of performance dimensions separately, an indicator system integrating all four dimensions was developed. It allows to depict whether ecological farms have different trade-offs and synergies than farms in the standard farming type. Results show that positive environmental effects, but mixed (context-specific) effects on the three other performance dimensions, are to be expected from an increasing uptake of ecological approaches in the EU.
Territorial sustainability was investigated in terms of socio-economic and environmental effects of ecological approaches to farming, using participatory approaches and stakeholders’ engagement (Bailey et al., 2021; Matthews et al., 2022; Van Ruymbeke, Zanni et al., 2021). A higher adoption of ecological farming approaches on territories is expected to lead to an increase in skill level and in sharing of capital and labour. As for the environmental impact of ecological farm management practices, it is context-specific and depends on local ecosystem service demand. Generally, territorial sustainability is strongest when the ecological farming adoption rate is high and when adoption is clustered.
A multi-scale sustainability assessment framework was then developed, in which findings from farm-level performance and territorial sustainability assessment were combined through multi-criteria analysis and stakeholders’ expertise (Van Ruymbeke et al., 2022). This revealed the linkages and compromises between farm and territorial level performance of farming systems across economic, social and environmental sustainability. Results show that higher sustainability is attained for combinations of two or more ecological farming approaches among the five ones listed above.
The role of past, current and potential novel policies, as well as private arrangements was assessed through a range of methodologies - from discourse analysis to impact evaluation (Legras et al., 2021; Védrine et al., 2021). Findings show that result-based payments are not more efficient than practice-based payments and that there is a large heterogeneity in farmers’ willingness to participate in collective-based schemes. The main policy recommendation is for larger flexibility under a common EU wide framework to adjust measures promoting ecological approaches to the regional context.
Intense interactions with stakeholders confirmed the importance of co-creation of knowledge (Latruffe et al., 2022). The transfer of findings to stakeholders was done through academic reports and articles, policy brief, EU-wide webinars, local dissemination in national languages, and Ecological Fact Sheets summarising key facts of ecological farming in LIFT case study areas. In addition, a free Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) was developed, allowing stakeholders to learn about ecological approaches to farming and exchange opinions.
References: see
https://zenodo.org/communities/lift-h2020/(se abrirá en una nueva ventana)Free LIFT MOOC with LIFT typology-tool and LIFT adoption-tool:
https://lms.agreenium.fr/course/index.php?categoryid=56&lang=en(se abrirá en una nueva ventana)
