SAFER

Across Europe, it has become clear that current farming practices are unsustainable, and that farming systems must be re-designed to sustain food production while protecting biodiversity, ecosystems, and the many benefits they bring to society. One solution to this is agroecology. 

Agroecological farming takes many forms but is underpinned by a common principle; to harness natural ecological processes to make farming more sustainable. Unfortunately, the adoption of agroecology is very limited in Europe. In the SAFER project a large team of European researchers will work across a network of six 'Living Labs', i.e. real farms across Europe in which agroecological practices are being implemented. In these, they will co-create knowledge with farmers and other relevant stakeholders. This knowledge will detail the agricultural, environmental, and social-ecological benefits, but also the potential trade-offs (e.g. between biodiversity protection and crop production) that agroecological practices bring. 

Peter Manning will play a key role in this project by scaling up field- and farm-level data from across the project to whole landscapes, and to simulate changes in farm practices using a combination of social science, remote sensing, and mathematical modelling. These will create forecasts of the whole-system consequences of landscape-scale farming strategies for farmers and local stakeholders. The end product will be detailed knowledge on how different ecological practices affect farmers and rural communities and the identification of strategies that increase sustainable production and multifunctionality in European agricultural landscapes. By actively involving farmers and other relevant stakeholders throughout the research process, we also aim to increase the relevance and adoption of the solutions identified.