1st report on state of play. Deliverable 2.3 of th AGROECOLOGY Partnership

The 1st EPAT (European Panel for Agroecology Transitions) was held in Brussels on the 11th of December 2024. The goal of this panel is to enhance interactions between scientists and policy makers. The EPAT is supposed to last a long time, at least the duration of the Partnership. It involves a core group including several partners from the Partnership like INRAE, ANR, CSIC, EEB, IFOAM, FBN and officers at European Commission. Apart from researchers and policy officers, such encounters also involve relevant stakeholders contributing to agroecology in Europe such as farmers and their organisations. One task was to identify potential participants likely to attend this core group. « Water and Land care » was selected as the specific topic for this first panel meeting. In addition to the core group, specific contributors were also invited to address this topic, valuing both the location in Belgium and expertise on transitions or water.

Brussels was chosen for this 1st EPAT because of possible participation of policy officer from the European Commission and think tanks members.

This report reflects the content and proceedings of this first EPAT. Our approach consisted of a combination of
(i) formal contributions in the form of oral presentations in plenary sessions,
(ii) a round table to allow different positions to be expressed,
(iii) three parallel workshops, based on contrasted situations (water management practices in situations of drought / of flood risk / collective management based on regenerative hydrology) and feedback from sessions
(iv) complementary contributions (Regional cases and cities. Translation into public policies at infra levels; International settings and perspectives from AE coalition and other initiatives),
(v) collective sequences, with the help of a professional facilitator, to encourage participants (n=36) to get to know each other and interact.

In an introductory and interactive session, participants were invited to think about what they would ask from research and policy, respectively. Scaling up agroecology through research funding was stressed repeatedly.

It was also pointed out that alignment is needed between policy and science, but there is a risk to get stuck in status quo. The development and current state of the AE partnership was introduced, stressing the current momentum, with new commissioner and implementation phase.

Two presentations were dedicated to agroecological transitions and attached approaches, ranging from technological interpretations to transition studies.

Accepting complexity and embracing food systems as a nexus enables a resignification of agroecology, where water also can be addressed as an interface between agroecosystems and food systems. The round table discussion with ERIAFF, Via Campesina, UCLouvain, Flanders Environment Agency and European Commission (DG AGRI and DG ENV) highlighted the importance of narratives and framing as powerful mechanisms to inform and drive policy and behaviour change.

In interactive parallel workshops, participants were invited to delve into contrasting situations about water management practices in situations of droughts and flooding as well as collective management with regenerative hydrology. It appeared that landscape management can help in buffering the water cycle, whereas agroecology connects landscape, agriculture and food systems. With a focus on agri-food systems, several instruments likely to support agroecology transitions at infra-level were also presented, pleading for: better coordination among stakeholders, higher support to public-community partnerships and more comprehensive data for planning and monitoring.

Finally, agroecology was considered as a global concept in a (globalised) international setting, while referring to several recent initiatives (AE coalition strategy 2024-2030, G20 Agriculture Ministers Declaration, OECD agricultural policy monitoring and evaluation 2024, EU strategic dialogue on the future of EU agriculture). As a whole, many topics were addressed and opened avenues for future developments in the partnership and for the next EPAT (addressing the soil law, infra-policies, multi-level and nexus approaches).