Ecological approaches to farming practices are gaining interest across Europe. As this interest grows there is a pressing need to assess the potential contributions these practices may make, the contexts in which they function and their attractiveness to farmers as potential adopters. In particular, ecological agriculture must be assessed against the aim of promoting the improved performance and sustainability of farms, rural environment, rural societies and economies, together.

The overall goal of LIFT is to identify the potential benefits of the adoption of ecological farming in the EU and to understand how socio-economic and policy factors impact the adoption, performance and sustainability of ecological farming at various scales, from the level of the single farm to that of a territory. This will be achieved through the integration of transdisciplinary scientific knowledge and stakeholder expertise to co-develop innovative decision-support tools.

LIFT is coordinated by INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique. The consortium includes 17 partners from 12 EU countries. In the project Agrifood participates together with Helena Hansson from the Department of Economics at SLU. LIFT has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and will last until April 2022.