SEED FUND 3.0 - Project FABIOS

Farmers’ Associations in a Bioeconomy-related Innovation System

Summary

Although farmers’ associations (FA) play an important role in agricultural knowledge and innovation systems (AKIS), this has hardly been explored in the context of the bioeconomy. FABIOS project therefore investigated to what extent FA in NRW and Argentina have taken up and implemented the concept of a sustainable bioeconomy, how they do this within existing innovation systems, and how these systems could be adapted to ensure sustainable innovations.

The main goals of FABIOS were:

• To analyze to what extent the concept of bioeconomy has been incorporated and how it is understood by FA in North Rhine-Westphalia and Argentina.
• To analyze what knowledge and practices are promoted by producer organizations to consolidate a sustainable bioeconomy and what are the characteristics of the agricultural innovation system that affect this knowledge transfer.
• To identify, together with the FA and bioeconomy stakeholders, potential technological and organizational innovations capable of contributing to the construction of a sustainable bioeconomy.

The first and second goals were largely achieved through cooperation with the project partners, the Argentine Association of Direct Seeding Producers (AAPRESID) in Argentina and the Rheinischer Landwirtschafts-Verband e.V. (RLV). Interviews with members and leaders of the FA were carried out, and an online-survey was sent to all members of the two FA. These interviews and the survey were the basis for the analysis of how the concept of a sustainable bioeconomy is understood, and put in practice, as well as the outcomes achieved. A scientific paper on the role of farmers’ organisations in the bioeconomy was published, taken the case of AAPRESID. A similar report was written based on the survey with the members of the RLV, but due to low response rate, could not be published. That was very regrettable, since the results are quite similar to those from the Argentinean survey, so that a comparison would have been very interesting. The third goal was partly achieved in Argentina: The results have been discussed in two strategic workshops with AAPRESID in 2024 and 2025. Because of the current political reorganizations of the public sector, we could not extend the discussion on a national AKIS but expect that AAPRESID will take into account the project results also on the political level. In NRW, we hope that the RLV will take the results and recommendations into account when developing a possible future bioeconomy strategy, which, however, does not currently appear to be a priority.

SEED FUND 3.0 Coordinator

Prof. Dr. Jan Börner
ILR – Economics of Sustainable Land Use and Bioeconomy
University of Bonn
email: j.borner[at]uni-bonn.de

Partners

Prof. Dr. Jan Börner, ILR – Economics of Sustainable Land Use and Bioeconomy, University of Bonn
Prof. Dr. Ulrich Schurr, IBG-2 – Plant Sciences, Forschungszentrum Jülich

Funding period

01.01.2024 - 31.12.2025

Funding

FABIOS is part of the NRW-Strategieprojekt BioSC and thus funded by the Ministry of Culture and Science of the German State of North Rhine-Westphalia.