Agromix. Catalogue and assessment of designs for mixed agroforestry systems: Deliverable 2.2

The AGROMIX project aims to drive the transition towards resilient farming, efficient land use management, and more sustainable agricultural value chains in Europe. Mixed and agroforestry systems show considerable potential to fulfil these aims. However, in order to achieve the widescale implementation of viable mixed farming and agroforestry (MF/AF) systems, we require new agricultural systems to be designed and existing systems to be further developed and go through a transformation process towards increased “mixedness”. We define an agricultural system broadly as: a system that produces livestock and/or crops (food, feed, fibre and energy), including the social, political and economic components of that system (Drinkwater et. al. 2016, FAO). A shift towards more resilient, sustainable and mixed systems, requires smaller or bigger system changes at all levels and in all of these components. This involves a learning curve and is a knowledge-intensive process.
In that context, within AGROMIX Work Package (WP) 2, we developed a six step participative co-design approach to support twelve pilots in this process. This was further supported with knowledge and tools from other work packages, but also vice-versa: the experiences within and the needs from the twelve pilots fed the other project activities. The twelve co-design pilots are located in regions with different agro-climatic conditions, land use, management, socio-economic contexts, size, type of production system and are representative of a wide range of farming systems in Europe.

They are:
1. Stadtbauernhof Saarbrücken (German pilot facilitated by IfaS),
2. Blue Pig Farm (French pilot facilitated by ITAB),
3. PHAE (Belgian pilot facilitated by ILVO),
4. Swiss Agroforestry Network (Swiss pilot facilitated by ZHAW),
5. Dairy Pecorino Cheese (Italian dry Mediterranean pilot facilitated by SSSA),
6. Winthagen (Dutch pilot facilitated by WR) (7),
7. Tamiso Cooperative (Italian pilot facilitated by VENAG),
8. Association of Rudno Households (Serbian pilot facilitated by NRDS),
9. La Barrosa (Spanish pilot facilitated by UEX),
10. Oikos Farm (Polish pilot facilitated by OSA),
11. Marston Vale (UK pilot facilitated by CRAN),
12. Curralões (Portuguese pilot facilitated by MVarc).

This report provides an overall performance assessment of the designs (chapter 4) based on the learning histories of each pilot (Annex A) and a catalogue of the twelve co-design processes (Annex B). The assessment reviews the process and solutions, and it examines what type of co-designs were developed, the main outcomes and the experiences with co-design approach. The catalogue offers a visual attractive factsheet for each of the twelve co-design pilots. It contains a description of I) their starting point and II) their learning history.