Welcome to FarmPath

'FarmPath' (Farming Transitions: Pathways towards regional sustainability of agriculture in Europe) is a three year collaborative research project funded through  European Commission’s Seventh Framework Programme which ran from March 2011 to May 2014. 

The overall goal of FarmPath was to identify and assess future transition pathways towards regional sustainability of agriculture in Europe, and the social and technological innovation needs required to initiate and progress along these pathways. For more information about the project see our project overview, our project introduction slideshow available here, or our final project report.

FarmPath involved a number of major activities:

• Develop a conceptual framework integrating transition management concepts with recent literature on agri-food regimes, resilience and farm-level transitions
• Empirical research in seven European countries (including UK, Greece, Germany, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Portugal, France)
• Study three regional ‘initiatives’ in seven countries, cross matched so that eight-ten different ‘types’ of initiative are studied.  These will be selected during the project.
• Regional visioning process in one region of each of the seven study countries.
• Research sub-focus on young farmers and new entrants cumulating in a dedicated policy brief.
• Develop a handbook on ‘regional sustainability of agriculture’.
• Policy recommendations in the form of a Policy brief entitled Regional Sustainability of Agriculture: Adapting Institutions and Policies to Enable Transition, ' and a policy report.
• A Final conference (as part of dissemenating the policy recommendations).
• A 2 page conceptual framework on 'transitions in farming'
• Complete nine academic book chapters
• Our final project report can be found here

Biogas plant on Sasov Farm, the Czech Republic (Photo courtesy of Sasov Farm, 2011)