EuroDairy will foster development and dissemination of practice-based innovations in dairy farming on key sustainability issues for the post-quota era. Work Package 1 (Project co-ordination) oversees formation of the Thematic Network, ensures interconnectivity in generation, capture and demonstration of innovation and best practice, and reports project outputs including recommendations for further innovation-driven research. WP 2 (Network of innovating pilot farmers and Knowledge Transfer Centres) establishes a community of innovating dairy farmers which through experience and practice on their own farms, bring good ideas and implementable solutions to EuroDairy. The farms participate in regional multi-actor operational groups, and connect as a network to share knowledge across borders. WPs 3-6 focus on four key topics - Resource efficiency, Biodiversity, Animal care, and Socio-economic resilience. These WPs provide leadership, direction and technical expertise for the exchange of innovative thinking, tools, technologies and best practice across the thematic network (pilot farmers, Knowledge Transfer Centres, and regional operational groups). WP 7 (Synergies in scientific and practice-based knowledge) draws from WPs 3-6 to capture new insights from combining science with practice-based knowledge, including benefits and trade-offs in solutions identified. WP 8 (Production and communication of end-user materials) implements a mix of novel and tried-and-tested approaches to internal and external communications. A diverse range of end-user outputs will be produced, made widely accessible to farmers. EuroDairy supports H2020 objectives to increase productivity, improve competitiveness and impact less on the environment. Involvement of dairy levy bodies, farmers’ organisations and cooperatives in an interactive, bottom-up approach will ensure practical relevance, and multiply benefits across Europe. Direct links to Hennovation and AgriSPIN, will add value to the project.

WelFarmers will set up eight national innovation networks and four Europe-wide networks of pig farmers, advisors, veterinarians and researchers to address the challenges of the upcoming change in the European pig welfare legislation. WelFarmers will address four main topics: cage ban; keeping pigs with uncovered tails; avoiding pain during castration and space and flooring. The most urgent innovation needs and challenges will be identified in a bottom up way and the network will collect and evaluate good practices that meet these needs. WelFarmers will also strive to collaborate with existing and new EIP-AGRI operational groups (OGs) and EU research projects focused on pig welfare and to enhance their impact. The selected best practices will be disseminated through a series of communication and dissemination activities to reach most pig farmers in the eight participating countries and in Europe. EIP abstracts, thematic reports videos, brochures, e-news, national workshops, transnational cross-fertilisation events and a multilingual website are some of the dissemination methods planned to communicate and disseminate the best practices.

MATS aims to identify key leverage points for changes in agricultural trade policy that foster the positive and reduce the negative impacts of trade on environmental sustainability and human well-being. Focus is on improving the design, governance and implementation of trade regimes and policies at private sector, national, EU, African and global levels. The key operational features of MATS are: a) a set of 15 in-depth country, regional and product case studies to provide a deeper understanding of the conditions for sustainable trade, an integrated multi-model simulation and assessment of linkages with agricultural market, trade and investment dynamics, and an analy-sis of institutional, regulatory and legal frameworks; b) a multi-stakeholder backcasting approach that builds on recent research related to transformative change and social innovation, and that uses novel participatory methods and platforms to explore transition pathways towards sustainable trade; c) a clustering with other trade-related research projects to benefit from synergies, and a major role for sector representatives, social movements and policymakers in framing analyses, co-assessing linkages, and deriving policy recommendations. MATS has the ambition to set a new benchmark in trade policy analysis. The main project outputs will be: (1) New quantitative and qualitative insights on the interactions between agricultural markets, trade, investments, policy, environmental sustainability and human well-being. (2) A set of Discussion Papers and Policy Briefs, incl. recommendations for enhancing the coherence of agricultural and trade policies with the SDGs. (3) An enhanced civil society–stakeholder–policy dialogue that is supported by an evidence-based communication platform – the Sustainable Trade Hub. (4) A set of innovative research tools for the analysis of the interactions between agricultural trade, agricultural investments, policy, environmental sustainability and human well-being.

Climate Farm Demo is a unique pan-European network of Pilot Demo Farmers (PDFs) covering 28 countries and all pedo-climatic areas. Its overall aim it to accelerate the adoption of Climate Smart Farming (CSF) practices and solutions by farmers and all actors of the Climate Smart Agriculture Knowledge & Innovation Systems with a view of adapting agricultural production systems to climate change and of achieving a carbon neutral agricultural sector by 2050, thereby meeting the targets of the EU Climate strategy. To reach this objective, the project adopts a Multi-Actor approach by connecting 1500 Pilot Demo Farmers and their Climate Farm Advisors (CFAs) at European and national levels to increase knowledge exchange & cross-fertilisation in their respective AKIS. The CFA’s will support the PDF’s in implementing Adaptation and Mitigation Measures suggested by contextualised guidelines and will assess & monitor their environmental performance thanks to harmonized methodologies & tools. Technical and social innovations covering a broad range of thematic areas will be demonstrated to the wider farming community across six annual demo-campaigns (4500 demo-events) supporting interactive and peer to peer learning. New and innovative CSF solutions will be co-created in 10 Living Labs spread across Europe and lessons learned from multi-actor innovation will be shared and scaled. A set of public and private rewarding mechanisms will be identified, proposed and demonstrated to the AKIS actors, thus incentivising the uptake of CSF solutions while ensuring sustainable business models. Strategic and operational cooperation will be organised with projects, flagship initiatives and policy-makers at European and national levels in order to share knowledge, organize coordinated actions, and produce policy briefs. Finally, to accelerate the wide spreading and uptake of results, an ambitious dissemination, exploitation and communication strategy will be deployed at EU and national levels