PASTINNOVA is a 3-year project that focuses on the sustainability of Mediterranean pastoralism. The project aspires to deliver innovations and business models that pertain to the particularities of pastoral systems in the Mediterranean. The project targets Mediterranean pastoral farms and their value chains (VCP) with a focus on smallholders maintaining ‘pastoral identities’ by making sustainable use of local resources at risk of abandonment and providing examples of circular economy for centuries and an alternative to dominant intensive livestock production systems.
The key objective of PASTINNOVA is to re-enforce the sustainability, profitability and resilience of small pastoral farms, by setting up innovations, business and organizational models to valorize their full potential and promote their access to markets. In particular, the project examines pastoral systems which are able to provide a broad array of ecosystem services along with high-quality products in a variety of agro-ecological and socio-economic Mediterranean settings.
In order to address the weak positioning of pastoral smallholders in Value Chains of Pastoral products (including short and circular ones), PASTINNOVA proposes a holistic interdisciplinary approach, which combines participatory approaches, assessments and real-life applications, where four elements interact (1) Diagnosis (listing of innovative project, practices and initiatives); (2) Testing of selected innovations under different contexts; (3) Small-scale pilot implementation, sustainability assessment; (4) Policy and market uptake.
In particular, based on the ‘Living Laboratories’ (LLs), a common network on “Pastoral actors and VCP” will be established to co-create innovative solutions for farmer organizations, farm management and value chains through the integration of needs, capacities and experiences of actors (e.g. farmers, entrepreneurs, manufacturers, retailers, policy makers, researchers, consumers). Selected solutions will be tested and implemented in small-scale real-life applications and assessed for their sustainability (economic, social, environmental). Particular focus will be set on the inclusion of vulnerable groups (e.g. women, young farmers and migrant workers) as well as on environmental performances of pastoral agro-ecosystems and chains, promoting sustainable and profitable use of farm waste. Furthermore, the project will propose a supportive policy framework and necessary value chain and market arrangements for efficient access to markets.
PASTINNOVA brings together a partnership of 20 of the most important pastoral Organizations – representing 12 countries - from various backgrounds (research, education, Cooperatives, policy, SMEs) and with different expertise (varying from socioeconomic analysis and Information and Communication Technologies to animal husbandry and rangeland science).
