Connecting COnsumers and producers to REbalance farmers’ position through AmbassaDOrs trainings

Project Information

COCOREADO

Grant agreement ID: 101000573

DOI

10.3030/101000573

Project closed

EC signature date 11 September 2020

Start date 1 January 2021

End date 30 June 2024

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Food security, sustainable agriculture and forestry, marine, maritime and inland water research, and the bioeconomy

Total cost

€ 2 999 250,00

EU contribution

€ 2 999 250,00

Coordinated by

KATHOLIEKE UNIVERSITEIT LEUVEN
Belgium

Periodic Reporting for period 3 - COCOREADO (Connecting COnsumers and producers to REbalance farmers’ position through AmbassaDOrs trainings)

Reporting period: 2023-07-01 to 2024-06-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

COCOREADO focuses on ways to rebalance the position of the farmer as an individual actor, as a key player in innovative food supply chains and as a supplier for public procurement. Based on the multi-actor approach and a deep understanding of agricultural knowledge and innovation systems (AKIS), the project applies a three-fold approach to maximise impact, relying on ambassadorship, good practices, and a focus on youth. The project involves both academic and close-to-farmers partners across Europe, recognising regional differences and barriers in terms of replicability of good practices and regional opportunities in terms of solutions.

An explicit focus of COCOREADO is to foster opportunities for young people in rural areas to co-create innovative solutions that overcome current hurdles for farmers and respond to consumer needs, while simultaneously improving the conditions for sustainable public procurement of local and seasonal food. The consortium connects key youth actors including young farmers, school children, college youth, young parents and youth movements in an environment that offers support and encouragement to the youth across Europe to undertake action. A key tool for creating such environment is the COCOREADO ambassador training programme. Active youth engagement in co-creating solutions remains at the core of not only the consortium, but it is also embedded within COCOREADO’s methodologies, thus ensuring that innovative supply chains remain future-proof.

The overall objective of the project is to document and disseminate practices that rebalance the position of farmers in supply chains and procurement procedures. COCOREADO has three specific objectives (1) to collect and analyse good practices, define solutions and develop tools that assist farmers to implement innovation that contributes to strengthening their position in the food chain, (2) to stimulate citizens to take initiatives that close the gap between farmers and consumers and (3) to develop decision support tools that can assist local governments in the development of a sound public procurement protocol enabling local and small farmers to participate, thus strengthening their position in the food chain.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The consortium developed a protocol for the multi-actor approach. All partners were trained in using the multi-actor approach during the project meetings.

A conceptual framework has been developed to create a bridge between empirical work within a project and any theoretical assumptions. This document covers the key factors, constructs, variables, assumptions, laws and ideas that underlie the broad concept of interest required to support and inform the research. This conceptual framework aims to create a mutual understanding and common language between all project partners and relevant actors to minimise (linguistic and conceptual) confusions in the course of the project and necessary for the aimed co-creation throughout the project.

The consortium has furthermore boosted novel and fair food systems. The project has contributed to that objective, considering the large involvement of all partners, as well as other actors external to the consortium, such as the COCOREADO ambassadors.

Simultaneously, the consortium worked on advancing sustainable public procurement. Barriers for small-scale farmers have been identified as a central issue in relation to the general objective of the COCOREADO project. Additionally, the consortium has worked on i) collecting relevant legal and cross-disciplinary literature on the subject of sustainable public procurement and food procurement; ii) collecting relevant legal sources; iii) identifying and collecting good practices as well as policy developments and iv) analysing part of the collected resources.

40 ambassadors have been selected and trained. A first training took place in March 2022 in Brussels. A second training took place in October 2022 in Pamplona. A third training took place in May 2023 in Riga.

Finally, COCOREADO has made significant progress in its ambition to co-create innovative supply chains. A protocol for the selection of seed initiatives has been developed. Proposals for seed initiatives have been collected. Ambassadors voted on the 18 preselected initiatives in order to end with 6 selected initiatives that received support for further development.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The integrative framework of ambassadorship in COCOREADO envisages three roles of the ambassadors: be an individual expert or lay person within a food system, be a member of a community representing and promoting certain food values and behavioural patterns, and be a change agent. These roles have been supported by the project’s training and the ambassadors’ networking. This integrative framework advances the ambassadorship concept and institution beyond state of the art: the project advances knowledge and practical solutions with regard to effects of the ambassador networks on the food chain actor decisions, experiences and mutual collaborations.

Furthermore, the project has provided an original conceptual framework to advance the knowledge of short food supply chain (SFSC) collaborations by bridging Supply Chain Management approaches with empirical evidence from the agri-food sector. The findings demonstrate that SFSC collaborations operate as dynamic ecosystems characterised by complex interdependencies among diverse actors. This diversity extends beyond traditional Business-to-Business (B2B) models to include Business-to-Consumer (B2C), Consumer-to-Business (C2B), and hybrid Business-to-Business-to-Consumer (B2B2C) relationships. These varied collaborative structures facilitate mutual learning, innovation, and value co-creation, crucial for the resilience and adaptability of local food systems. The presence of robust interaction mechanisms is critical for aligning efforts and achieving shared objectives, even if not all mechanisms are uniformly present in every collaboration. Partial representation of these mechanisms is sufficient to foster effective partnerships and relational benefits.

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