Periodic Reporting for period 1 - COCOREADO (Connecting COnsumers and producers to REbalance farmers’ position through AmbassaDOrs trainings)
Período documentado: 2021-01-01 hasta 2022-06-30
COCOREADO, which is inspired by the Esperanto for co-creation, is a project designed 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 coordinate and support actions that rebalance the position of farmers in supply chains and procurement procedures. For this, COCOREADO will take two starting points. First, we will take existing innovative initiatives across Europe as the point of departure. A wide range of such initiatives will be subsequently scrutinised from the perspective of the farmer’s position in the chain and translated into good, hands-on approaches. Second, through an Ambassadors network, COCOREADO will invest in trainings, educational materials and decision support tools complemented with the co-creation of new ‘seed’ initiatives in practice.
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 coordinate and support actions that rebalance the position of farmers in supply chains and procurement procedures. For this, COCOREADO will take two starting points. First, we will take existing innovative initiatives across Europe as the point of departure. A wide range of such initiatives will be subsequently scrutinised from the perspective of the farmer’s position in the chain and translated into good, hands-on approaches. Second, through an Ambassadors network, COCOREADO will invest in trainings, educational materials and decision support tools complemented with the co-creation of new ‘seed’ initiatives in practice.
The consortium developed a protocol for the multiactor approach. All partners were trained in using this MA approach during the project meetings.
A conceptual framework has been developed. The development of a conceptual framework (CF) creates 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 made progress in its ambition to boost novel and fair food systems. The work performed so far 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. The final list of innovative initiatives has been selected.
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 a first training took place in March 2022 in Brussels. A second training will take place in October 2022 in Pamplona.
Finally, COCOREADO has made significant progress in its ambition to cocreate 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 for which the process of co-creation to support the development of each initiative is started.
A conceptual framework has been developed. The development of a conceptual framework (CF) creates 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 made progress in its ambition to boost novel and fair food systems. The work performed so far 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. The final list of innovative initiatives has been selected.
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 a first training took place in March 2022 in Brussels. A second training will take place in October 2022 in Pamplona.
Finally, COCOREADO has made significant progress in its ambition to cocreate 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 for which the process of co-creation to support the development of each initiative is started.
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 will be supported by the project’s training and the ambassadors’ networking. This integrative framework will advance the ambassadorship concept and institution beyond state of the art: the project will advance knowledge and practical solutions with regard to effects of the ambassador networks on the food chain actor decisions, experiences and mutual collaborations.
Overall, the expected results of the project is twofold. On the one hand, the project will offer a unique platform by bringing together a very diverse group of actors. On the other hand, COCOREADO builds on a well-organised collaborative approach and contributes significantly to enhancing the position of the farmer, reconnect consumers and producers and the development of sustainable food procurement by:
• an evidence-based multi-actor approach guided by the expert team of EVILVO
• sharing and promoting developed and tested educational materials and support tools to enhance the position of the farmer and develop sustainable food procurement
• co-creating initiatives that address the position of the farmer and reconnect producers and consumers
Overall, the expected results of the project is twofold. On the one hand, the project will offer a unique platform by bringing together a very diverse group of actors. On the other hand, COCOREADO builds on a well-organised collaborative approach and contributes significantly to enhancing the position of the farmer, reconnect consumers and producers and the development of sustainable food procurement by:
• an evidence-based multi-actor approach guided by the expert team of EVILVO
• sharing and promoting developed and tested educational materials and support tools to enhance the position of the farmer and develop sustainable food procurement
• co-creating initiatives that address the position of the farmer and reconnect producers and consumers