Co-designing Climate-Smart Farming Systems With Local Stakeholders: A Methodological Framework for Achieving Large-Scale Change

Abstract

The literature is increasing on how to prioritize climate-smart options with stakeholders but relatively few examples exist on how to co-design climate-smart farming systems with them, in particular with smallholder farmers. This article presents a methodological framework to co-design climate-smart farming systems with local stakeholders (farmers, scientists, NGOs) so that large-scale change can be achieved. This framework is based on the lessons learned during a research project conducted in Honduras and Colombia from 2015 to 2017. Seven phases are suggested to engage a process of co-conception of climate-smart farming systems that might enable implementation at scale: (1) "exploration of the initial situation," which identifies local stakeholders potentially interested in being involved in the process, existing farming systems, and specific constraints to the implementation of climate-smart agriculture (CSA); (2) "co-definition of an innovation platform," which defines the structure and the rules of functioning for a platform favoring the involvement of local stakeholders in the process; (3) "shared diagnosis," which defines the main challenges to be solved by the innovation platform; (4) "identification and ex ante assessment of new farming systems," which assess the potential performances of solutions prioritized by the members of the innovation platform under CSA pillars; (5) "experimentation," which tests the prioritized solutions on-farm; (6) "assessment of the co-design process of climate-smart farming systems," which validates the ability of the process to reach its initial objectives, particularly in terms of new farming systems but also in terms of capacity building; and (7) "definition of strategies for scaling up/out," which addresses the scaling of the co-design process. For each phase, specific tools or methodologies are used: focus groups, social network analysis, theory of change, life-cycle assessment, and on-farm experiments. Each phase is illustrated with results obtained in Colombia or Honduras.

Rethinking resilient agriculture: From Climate-Smart Agriculture to Vulnerable-Smart Agriculture

“…More importantly, very few studies on CSA seek to increase participatory-rural projects and improve small-scale farmers' livelihoods in rural areas. As a result, despite previous studies (e.g., Andrieu et al, 2019), there is still a research gap on current and future rural living conditions that must be addressed by CSA interventions in order to enhance small-scale farming opportunities (e.g., benefit of timely yields). To fill this gap and to identify different levels of possible interventions, as well as the development of VSA elements, this study contributes to designing a conceptual framework which consists of the five main elements: i) predicting and responding to climate incidents, ii) measuring the consequences, iii) identifying small-scale farmers' coping strategies, iv) assessing small-scale farmers' livelihood capitals, and) adapting to climate change incidents.…”

“…in order to actively engage manufacturers, technicians, politicians, and goods. Andrieu et al (2019) in another study present a methodological framework to co-design CSA systems with local stakeholders (farmers, scientists, and NGOs) in order to achieve major changes. Seven stages of the CSA's co-design process were used, and for each stage, different methods and methodologies were applied, including the evaluation of focus groups, social network research, growth cycle evaluation, and on-farm experiments.…”

Cacao, copoazu and macambo: Exploring Theobroma diversity in smallholder agroforestry systems of the Peruvian Amazon

“…Agroforestry systems (AFS) are multifunctional agroecosystems which provide, along with crop production (van Noordwijk et al 2016(van Noordwijk et al , 2020, a large range of regulating and supporting ecosystem services such as regulation of local climate, maintenance of soil fertility, carbon storage, and maintenance of genetic diversity (Mortimer et al 2017;Ellison et al 2017;Nelson & Phillips 2018;Andrieu et al 2019). Appropriate agroforestry management can enhance forest conservation, genetic diversity, food production and livelihoods (Herrero-Jáuregui et al 2019).…”

Flows in Agro-food Networks (FAN): An agent-based model to simulate local agricultural material flows

“…Such a small region level is critical since all actors involved in this delimited area are uniquely identified in FAN, at the individual and at the collective level, which helps the evaluation of circular flows between farms and specific partners. In addition, due to its capacity to apply strong circular economy principles for recycling biomaterials more efficiently and therefore promoting other uses such as energy, the FAN model can help to assess competition between bioenergy and food sectors and to develop climate smart farming systems at regional scales (Andrieu et al, 2019). Finally, our model was developed by combining multiple approaches in order to address a set of environmental and economic issues linked to circular material flows and the challenges they face in a global market offering manifold farm inputs.…”