About

Coordinated by Coventry University, AGROMIX brings together researchers, farmers and policymakers to explore the transition towards resilient farming, efficient land use, and sustainable agricultural value chains in Europe.

What is mixed farming and agroforestry?

Agroforestry is the integration of trees with crops and/or livestock, on the same land area. This approach (if well managed) increases productivity in comparison to conventional agriculture, captures carbon, regenerates soil, and increases biodiversity.

Similarly, mixed farming is the practice of integrating crop and livestock production to benefit from the resulting ecological and economic interactions.

There are several categories of agroforestry, depending on the components (trees, crops and/or livestock), their distribution in space (linear, scattered, hedges), and their distribution in time, and they are sometimes referred to as wood pastures, intercropped and grazed orchards, grazed forests, and forest farms.

The commonality between these practices is that they allow farmers to create biodiverse landscapes that reduce their dependence on a single product, whilst positively impacting the physical environment around them.

Meet the Team

Ülle Püttsepp

(Estonian University of Life Sciences - Eesti Maaülikool, Estonia) - WP1: ContextI
“Our team is building a diversity-based resilience framework by gathering and synthesising knowledge, identifying gaps, and defining terms, which will guide AGROMIX in developing tools for resilient land use in the face of climate change.”

Daniël de Jong

(Wageningen University and Research, the Netherlands)
WP2: System design and synergies
“We are not changing the design, we are designing for change! To do so, we run 12 co-designed mixed farming and agroforestry pilot projects across Europe with a diverse group of stakeholders, leaving a legacy of meaningful impact through our co-design approach.”

Rodrigo Olave

(Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute, UK)
WP3: Biophysical Indicators and Scenarios
“Whilst mixed farming and agroforestry systems in Europe are valued for their ecological services and resources, we need to better understand how to measure resilience qualitatively, and mitigate the threat of a changing climate.”

Alberto Mantino

(Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Italy) - WP4: Participatory Research and Tools for Climate-Smart Transition
“We aim to develop a participatory approach to unlock synergies in agroforestry and mixed farming, using a holistic assessment of sustainability and resilience drivers at the farm and landscape levels, through the development of an evidence-based serious game.”

Fabio Bartolini

 (University of Pisa, Italy) - WP5: Socio-Economic, Value Chain and Network Assessment
“We use an inclusive approach to co-create sustainable and resilient value chains for mixed farming and agroforestry. Our goal is to integrate different approaches (modelling and participatory activities) to envision future business opportunities for these land management systems.”

Ulrich Schmutz

(Coventry University, UK) 
WP6: Policy Development
“Our team researches fundamental policy challenges, co-developing policy to support national and EU institutions to overcome conflicts caused by specialisation scenarios. This work will support an ‘agroecological transition’ towards agroforestry and mixed livestock farming systems, while phasing out all industrial intensive livestock systems in Europe. ”

Patricia Carbonell

 (REVOLVE, Spain) 
WP7: Communication, Dissemination and Exploitation
“We use communication tools to make AGROMIX meaningful to all. Our goal is to use storytelling and visual design to evoke emotions, highlight the value of our shared natural resources, raise awareness about climate-resilient food systems, and encourage people to take action.”

Sara Burbi

(Coventry University, UK) 
WP8: Coordination
“We understand the impact of conventional land use, and we know that we need alternatives. Mixed farming and agroforestry can build climate-resilient farming systems, but what we don’t know is how to ensure that the environmental, socio-economic and policy contexts that make these solutions feasible are in place. AGROMIX’s objective is to find answers to these uncertainties.”

Gabriella Nagy

(CEEweb for Biodiversity, Hungary) 
WP9: Ethics Requirements
“We understand the impact of conventional land use, and we know that we need alternatives. Mixed farming and agroforestry can build climate-resilient farming systems, but what we don’t know is how to ensure that the environmental, socio-economic and policy contexts that make these solutions feasible are in place. AGROMIX’s objective is to find answers to these uncertainties.”
  • Ülle Püttsepp (Estonian University of Life Sciences - Eesti Maaülikool, Estonia)
    WP1: Context

    “ Our team is building a diversity-based resilience framework by gathering and synthesising knowledge, identifying gaps, and defining terms, which will guide AGROMIX in developing tools for resilient land use in the face of climate change.

  • Daniël de Jong (Wageningen University and Research, the Netherlands)
    WP2: System design and synergies
    “ We are not changing the design, we are designing for change! To do so, we run 12 co-designed mixed farming and agroforestry pilot projects across Europe with a diverse group of stakeholders, leaving a legacy of meaningful impact through our co-design approach.
  • Rodrigo Olave (Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute, UK)
    WP3: Biophysical Indicators and Scenarios
    “ Whilst mixed farming and agroforestry systems in Europe are valued for their ecological services and resources, we need to better understand how to measure resilience qualitatively, and mitigate the threat of a changing climate.
  • Alberto Mantino (Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Italy)
    WP4: Participatory Research and Tools for Climate-Smart Transition
    “ We aim to develop a participatory approach to unlock synergies in agroforestry and mixed farming, using a holistic assessment of sustainability and resilience drivers at the farm and landscape levels, through the development of an evidence-based serious game.
  • Fabio Bartolini (University of Pisa, Italy)
    WP5: Socio-Economic, Value Chain and Network Assessment
    “ We use an inclusive approach to co-create sustainable and resilient value chains for mixed farming and agroforestry. Our goal is to integrate different approaches (modelling and participatory activities) to envision future business opportunities for these land management systems.
  • Ulrich Schmutz
    Ulrich Schmutz (Coventry University, UK) 
    WP6: Policy Development
    “ I hope AGROMIX will truly transform landscapes - physical landscapes with doubling agroforestry land use in Europe, and political landscapes, contributing to a partnership of agroecological living labs and food system transformation
  • Patricia Carbonell (REVOLVE, Spain)
    WP7: Communication, Dissemination and Exploitation
    “ We use communication tools to make AGROMIX meaningful to all. Our goal is to use storytelling and visual design to evoke emotions, highlight the value of our shared natural resources, raise awareness about climate-resilient food systems, and encourage people to take action.
  • Gabriella Nagy (CEEweb for Biodiversity, Hungary)
     WP9: Ethics Requirements
    “ In AGROMIX we target as many actors as possible, such as farmers, local communities, researchers, universities, policymakers, leaders of the European macro-regions, and the European Commission, sharing our message: Changes must be made now, by all of us, without boundaries, in equality for every citizen on the continent.

Our Partnership

Advisory Board

Clara I. Nicholls
Shiming Luo
MiSun Park
María Claudia Dussi

Clara Nicholls

Co-Director

Contact
Centro Latinoamericano de Investigaciones Agroecológicas (CELIA)

Medellín, Colombia

Clara Nicholls holds a master’s degree in Entomology from the Colegio de Posgraduados, Chapingo, Mexico, and a PhD in Entomology and Biological Control of Insect Pests from the University of California Davis. She is currently a Lecturer of Sustainable Rural Development in Latin America at the University of California, Berkeley, whilst teaching at Santa Clara University in California and various universities in Colombia, Brazil, Nicaragua, Argentina, Spain and Italy.

Alongside this, Nicholls serves as President of the Latin American Scientific Society of Agroecology (SOCLA) and is the Regional Coordinator of REDAGRES - a network of Latin American researchers exploring ways to enhance the resilience of farming systems.

Shiming Luo

Professor

Contact
South China Agricultural University

Guangzhou, Guangdong, China

Luo Shiming is a Professor at the Institute of Tropical and Subtropical Ecology at the South China Agricultural University in Guangzhou, China.

Shiming has been involved in teaching and research on agroecology since 1978, focusing on the agroecosystem in subtropical China; his first textbook on agroecology was published in 1987. From 2005-2013 he served as President of the Agroecology Committee under the China Society of Ecology, and was the Vice President of the China Society of Ecology from 2000-2009.

MiSun Park

Associate Professor

Contact
Seoul National University, Graduate School of International Agricultural Technology

Pyeongchang-un, Gangwon Province, Republic of Korea

Misun Park holds a PhD in Forest Policy at the University of Gottingen in Germany, and works in the field of agricultural, forest and environmental policy. 

Park carries out research on green space management policies including urban forestry, urban agriculture, and agroforestry policies in developing countries, as well as biodiversity management at the national and global levels. She is a Coordinating Lead Author at IPBES (the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services). Alongside this she coordinates the Research Group 9.03.04 Traditional Forest Knowledge, and id the Deputy Coordinator of Working Party 9.01.07 Forests and the Media at the IUFRO (International Union of Forest Research Organizations).

María Claudia Dussi

Professor

Contact
Department of Agricultural Sciences, Comahue National University

Rio Negro, Patagonia, Argentina

Maria Claudia Dussi is a professor of agroecology and temperate fruit physiology and culture at the Comahue National University (Argentina). 

Dussi leads a study group on the sustainability of agroecosystems (GESAF), and trains graduate students on indicators of sustainability, energy flux and efficiency, and carbon footprints in agroecosystems. She is a board member of the Latin America Scientific Society of Agroecology (SOCLA), Vice-Chair of the Commission Agroecology and Organic Farming Systems, and board member of the Argentinean Society of Agroecology (SAAE).

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