Abstract: The sustainable development of agricultural systems is currently challenged by many complex agro-environmental issues. These are characterized by an incomplete understanding of the situation and the problems that arise, and the conflicting opinions that result, issues over boundaries that are often difficult to define, and controversy over the multiple goals and uncertain outcomes. Added to these characteristics, we also have the slow and often inadequate uptake and implementation of research outcomes in this complex, real world. In order to improve sustainability of agro-ecosystems, agronomic research must move away from the linear research approaches and extension practices adopted so far that have focused purely on biophysical agro-ecosystems. The theoretical operational space of agronomic research must be transformed by considering agronomic issues as part of a broader social-agro-ecosystem. One aspect of this transformation is the inclusion of knowledge collected on a local level with the participation of farmers on the ground. The integration of local experiential knowledge with traditional agronomic research is by necessity based on the participation of many different stakeholders and there can be no single blueprint for how best to develop and use the input received. However, agronomists and policy advisors require general guidelines drawn up from actual experience in order to accelerate positive agronomic change. We address this need through a comparative analysis of two case studies; one involves multi-stakeholder research in a cropping system in the dairy district of Arborea, Sardinia, Italy. The central question was: How can high crop production be maintained while also achieving the EU target water quality and minimizing the production costs? The second case is a multi-stakeholder soil health project from south-eastern Australia. Here the central question was: How can soil decline be prevented and reversed in this district, and soils made more resilient to future challenges? The Social Learning for the Integrated Management and sustainable use of water (SLIM) framework, a useful heuristic tool for exploring the dynamics of transformational change, guided the analysis of the case studies. Within this framework, a key indicator of success is the emergence of new knowledge from the creation of new spaces for learning between researchers and local stakeholders. The Italian case study appears to have been the most successful in this sense, as opportunities for joint exploration of research data allowed new potential farming responses to the central question to emerge. The multi-stakeholder processes in the Australian case focused more on providing public openings for individual learning, and missed the opportunity for new knowledge to emerge through joint exploration. We conclude that participatory approaches may enable transformative practice through knowledge integration, but that this process is not an automatic outcome of increased community participation.

Abstract: The workshop was called to define an overarching question to be answered by all Regional  Pilot Studies and to select from the existing studies those that fit best to the aims of  MACSUR. The question that evolved from the discussions is “What would be the different  contributions of different European adaptation strategies to ensure global food security  until 2050 at different scales (farm to EU) while keeping the GHG targets?” Workshop  participants agreed to use the newest climate simulations related to Representative  Concentration Pathways that were also used by the AgMIP and ISI-MIP projects. There was  also agreement to use a subset of the AgMIP scenarios (S2-S6) for impact assessments, with  AgMIP scenario S1 as the reference scenario, for details see Table 3 below. The selection  of Regional Pilot Studies was discussed separately for European Grand Regions, but there  was no concluding decision taken. The Project Steering Committee will finally decide on  showcase studies at a meeting in the first week of July based on characterisations sent in  by interested members. Questionnaires for characterising the Regional Pilot Studies will be  sent by the Hub to the regional contact persons mentioned in Table 2 to fill in. The  characterization list can be extended. The questionnaires should be filled in by the end of  June. Stakeholder meetings are planned for October 2013 in each region where  preliminary/sample outputs of the regional pilot studies should be presented. Results will  be presented at the mid-term meeting in April 2014. The last year of MACSUR is then  available to improve the studies.The geographic extent of the Regional Pilot Studies is  approximately county level – representing the area of the studies they are based on. The  Regional Pilot Studies will be linked within the grand regions (northern, central, southern  Europe) by consistent regional and continental Representative Agricultural Pathways (RAP).  These regional RAPs will feed into the RAP process underway at AgMIP. Through the  common RAPs the Regional Pilot Studies will reflect the common challenges of the greater  region and by having several Regional Pilot Studies the diversity of the environment,  farming systems, and political systems is represented. The workshop was a first step into  further planning and performing the Regional Pilot Studies that will fine-tune the results of  the workshop. No Label