Database populated with European diversification experiences - Deliverable 1.2

The EU Horizon 2020 project DiverIMPACTS aims to promote the realisation of the full potential of crop diversification through rotation, multicropping and intercropping by demonstrating technical, economic and environmental benefits for famers, along the value chain and for society at large, and by providing innovations that can remove existing barriers and lock-ins of practical diffusion.

DiverIMPACTS does so by combining findings from several participatory case studies with a set of field experiments across Europe, and translating these into strategies, recommendations and fit-for-purpose tools developed with and for farmers, advisors and other actors along the value chain.

To first gain a good overview of the current situation, i.e. the existing success stories and challenges of crop diversification in Europe, Work Package 1 (WP 1) identified and analysed factors of success and failure associated with a variety of crop diversification experiences (CDEs) outside those already represented in the consortium (see Deliverable 1.1). WP 1 thus makes sure that the rich experience with crop diversification initiatives across Europe (e.g from other Horizon 2020 projects) is taken into account for developing strategies, recommendations and tools.

Deliverable 1.1 provided i) a list of key drivers (ex ante occurrence of market opportuni- ties, environmental constraints, availability of enabling advisory services, land and workforce availability etc.) to be further considered in WP3, and WP5; and ii) a comprehensive and exhaustive description of the links between key factors and CDE types. This analysis is the ba- sis for consolidating or updating the tentative typology of crop diversification situations used for setting up DiverIMPACTS (case studies), and was used for selecting experiences for more detailed investigations in T1.2. It also complements the identification and characterisation of lock-ins and barriers to crop diversification, and serves their overcoming. During the process of collecting, cleaning and analysing the survey data, a Database of European diversification experiences was created.