Developing EU advisory networks on consumer-producer chains

Proposals should address the following activities:

• Connect advisors with knowledge on short supply chains who have a broad and extensive network of farmers across all EU Member States into an EU advisory network on short food supply chains to better connect consumers with producers, securing producers’ income, building on the outcomes of the EIP-AGRI Workshop “Cities and Food – Connecting Consumers and Producers” and the Focus Group on Short Food Supply Chains[[https://ec.europa.eu/eip/agriculture/en/event/eip-agri-workshop-cities-and-food-%E2%80%93-connecting]].
• Share effective and novel short chain approaches and experiences among this EU advisory network. These approaches must be sustainable in terms of economic, environmental and social aspects.
• Focus on cost-benefit elements. Collect and document good examples in this regard, connecting with farmers, intermediates and consumers in Member States to be able to take into account financial aspects and local conditions. Select the best practices, learn about the key success factors, possible quick wins and make them available for (local) exploitation, to ensure financial win-wins for producers and consumers.
• Integrate the advisors of the EU short food supply chain network into the Member States’ AKIS as much as possible. They can provide encouragement as innovation brokers in local short chain projects of European innovation partnership ""Agricultural productivity and sustainability"" (EIP-AGRI) Operational Groups. They should give hands-on training to farmers and local advisors, lead national thematic and learning networks on the subject, deliver and implement action plans with interested farmers, inspire new and incoming farmers or farms at the cross-roads of intergenerational renewal, connect with education and ensure broad communication, support peer-to-peer consulting, develop on-farm demonstrations and YouTube demo films, and provide specific back-office support for generalist advisors within the national/regional AKIS.
• Explore if the some or all activities of the EU advisory network on short supply chains can be upscaled at the level of a number of Member States under a cooperative format. Wherever possible, develop digital advisory and accelerator tools for common and open use across the EU. Determine whether common instruments can be created to incentivise the implementation of short food supply chains linking producers with consumers, for instance in the framework of smart villages, or to incentivise novel food strategies for cities, villages and rural areas, etc.
• Include all 27 EU Member States in the EU advisory network. Make use in all those countries of experts who understand and are able to make an accurate interpretation of the national / regional contexts to help develop the best solutions for that Member State or region. Use the support from the knowledge and innovation experts of the SCAR-AKIS Strategic Working Group to discuss project strategies, coordination and progress in the various stages of the 2 projects. Projects should run at least 5 years. They must implement the multi-actor approach.
• Provide all outcomes and materials to the EIP-AGRI, including in the common 'practice abstract' format for EU wide dissemination, as well as to national / regional / local AKIS channels and to the EU-wide interactive knowledge reservoir (HORIZON-CL6-2021-GOVERNANCE-01-24) in the requested formats.