Abstract: This report is grounded on the hypotheses, methodologies and approaches for stakeholder mapping designed during the early stages of MACSUR and described in the previous report1. It describes the kind of activities conducted by the WPC6-3-4 MACSUR team and the emerging design of activities for the second phase of MACSUR (2015-2017). The designed process of strategic stakeholder mapping was implemented by some of the teams involved in the task and through hub initiatives. Key actions were the (i) development of suitable intermediary objects to engage with stakeholders, through the regional pilot case studies, (ii) the design and implementation of key events (we report here the case of the Agroscenari event at the case study scale, the national event between the MACSUR Italian partnership with Italian policy makers held in Rome in July 2014, the international stakeholder events at the MACSUR mid term meeting in Sassari (April 2014), and the one held in Bruxelles on 6 May 2015) and (iii) the process of stakeholder and stakeholding mapping at the case study scale. Results indicate that when dealing with high level stakeholders (e.g. institutional or large agro-food enterprises), occasional stakeholder events will only serve as opportunity for showcasing and possibly for a data collection useful for researchers, with almost no impact on the ongoing social learning process sought by the designed activities. At the case study scale, instead, the long term and ongoing activities can generate new spaces for mutual learning and knowledge hybridization, through a variety of mediating objects emerging from the continuous interactions. The lesson learned is that the engagement of high level stakeholders can be effective insofar they are somehow involved in the interactions with stakeholders at the case study scale, as this can provide a key experience leading to a change in understanding about the nature of the issues that can ultimately result into a change in practice. These results will be the basis for the design of new strategies for engaging EU policy makers and large agro-food energy representatives in the second phase of MACSUR. No Label

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.