News & Events

Dear Reader,

We are very pleased to inform you that we have just released the 4th issue of the UNISECO Project Newsletter.

You may access and browse or download the PDF version here.

Here are some highlights what you can find in this issue:

Dealing with various tasks during the Covid-19 pandemic was a challenge but the UNISECO project team managed to generate valuable results and to co-construct transition strategies with the Multi-Actor Platforms in the 15 case studies which were discussed in the recent 6th project meeting.

We would like to thank the members of the Multi-Actor Platforms for participating in the interviews and workshops (both online and in-person) and for their valuable input to the transdisciplinary research in UNISECO. 

On October 8^th, from 5 to 7:30 pm, the Club of Rome-EU Chapter, Agroecology Europe and IPES-Food organised an on-line conference on the future of the « From Farm to Fork » strategy announced by the European Commission on May 20^th. The conference was attended by 180 participants, GEO was representing the UNISECO consortium.

The fourth issue of our 6 monthly newsletters will be out very soon. 
In this issue you will find information on... 

On 29 September 2020, the European Parliament’s “Biodiversity, Hunting, Countryside” Intergroup organised in conjunction with FACE-European Federation for Hunting and Conservation and UNISECO project partner ELO-European Landowners’ Organization a high-level conference on the “Farm to Fork Strategy: Ensuring a healthy balance between Europe’s food systems and biodiversity conservation”. 

A series of 4 webinars (31 August, 10 September, 24 September, 12 October 2020) organized by INRAE bring together European researchers working on the futures of agriculture, on crop health and crop protection. UNISECO partner SLU gave a presentation on 10 September.

We had our second virtual project meeting this year on 24 and 25 September. 

The objective of the meeting included to review the status quo of the project and the progress, to prepare forthcoming activities in the WPs and to review the next steps until the next project meeting, to review the multi-actor engagement and agree on revisions and to review dissemination and exploitation.

David Miller (HUT) represented the UNISECO team.

A forum with case study farmers and agricultural advisors from the Hungarian Multi-actor Platform took place on 8 September 2020 in Kaposvár, Hungary.

During the summer of 2020, as part of the process of constructing a strategy to foster a transition to organic and agro-ecological farming practices in the dairy sector in Latvia, Baltic Environmental Forum Latvia hosted a lively roundtable discussion attended by 11 members of the Latvian Multi-Actor Platform, including farmers, farmer organizations, an environmental NGO, researchers and government representatives from the agricultural sector.

Education and knowledge transfer, localised and collective infrastructures, and a more supple regulation framework identified as key solutions to support and boost the use of agro-ecological practices in Romania at a workshop organised at the end of July by WWF-Romania under the UNISECO project to analyse the governance dimension of agro-ecology, stakeholders representing key actors in the governance system identified a set of solutions to address barriers to agro-ecology in Romania, as well as ideas to take advantage of existing opportunities to support and expand the use of agro-ecological practices.

During June and July 2020, we carried out online group interviews with farmers and farm advisors to identify strategies for reducing animal stocking densities in the case study region Lucerne Central Lakes Region. In a subsequent workshop, we then had lively discussion on what would need to change in policies and market to support those previously identified strategies.