Governance Networks Supporting Agro-Ecological Farming Systems

This document represents the Deliverable D5.2 within Workpackage WP5 “Governance and policy assessment” of the EU Horizon 2020 project UNISECO (Understanding and improving the sustainability of agro-ecological farming systems in the EU). The overall objective of this Deliverable (D5.2) is to identify and analyse the governance structures which characterise the different transition “patterns” in the context of the 15 UNISECO case studies.

The specific objectives of D5.2 can be synthesized as:   

• To identify and analyse the most relevant actors for addressing key agro-ecological dilemmas in each Case Study (across the seven main types of actors: farmers; authorities and administrations; agri-food value chain actors; science, innovation, advisory and capacity building actors; NGOs, civic society organisations, local community representatives; consumers; media);
• To identify and analyse the governance networks with relevance for the challenge. The focus is on power relations, conflicts, collaborations, collective action dynamics, the flows of knowledge and tangible goods. The purpose is to understand the decision-making process and how the network and its elements (actors and actor-actor links) can influence pathways of agro-ecological transitions.

Social Network analysis (SNA) is the method that has been used to analyse the governance structures involved in the transition towards agro-ecological farming system (AEFS). The analysis went well-beyond the farm level, by looking at how different stakeholder groups are engaged in the transition processes towards sustainable agriculture and food systems.

The report is structured as follows: Section 2 includes an introduction to the topic with particular attention to governance networks enabling the transition towards AEFS. Section 3 reports on the research method (Social Network Analysis) used for the data collection in the context of the 15 UNISECO case studies. Section 4 presents an overview of all case studies, while Section 5 provides a comparative analysis of the different governance networks. Conclusions are drawn in Section 6. The Annex (10.5281/zenodo.4568451) includes a more detailed description of all the 15 case studies.