From Living Labs to Community Based Organizations

Farms4Climate partner IFOAM hosted last month an online training session presented by Aina Calafat, which aimed to discuss the features and advantages of Community Based Organizations in the agricultural ecosystem.  

A Community Based Organization (CBO) is a sustainable, multi-actor, non-profit community that operates at the local level to address social, economic, or health issues. In the agricultural ecosystem, CBOs consist of local farmers and consumers who come together to support sustainable local agriculture, access locally grown food, live in healthier environments, improve access to carbon markets, and ensure the economic and environmental resilience of farming communities. This partnership materializes in the form of a contract between the different stakeholders, who commit to mutually supplying one another (with money, work and/or food) over an extended period of time.

In this context, Farms4Climate partner IFOAM organized in September an online training session titled "From Living Laboratories to Community Based Organizations", where Aina Calafat from the Spanish Society of Ecological Agriculture (SEAE) and IFOAM AgriBioMediterraneo shared her insights into the topic, explaining the differences and presenting examples of Living Labs, CBOs and Organic Districts.

The event, that was hosted by Constantinos Machairas, also had the participation of F4C partners Teodoro Berlocco (Agreenment) and Carla Gonzales Gemio (AIR), as well as the presence of members of the consortium from the University of Basilicata, the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Heliopolis University, and AlVelAl. Overall, the objectives are to develop and maintain a multi-actor stakeholder community that actively participates in the process of co-creation of the CBOs, as well as to understand farmer and consumer behaviours, motivations and barriers to developing sustainable crop production methods that foster innovative solutions.

In this sense, transformative CBOs can emerge when rural actors are motivated by greater scale questions, such as the urgent need to tackle climate issues while defending the farmers' income. Initiatives from F4C partners such as the 4Returns model (AlVelAl), the Economy of Love (SEKEM) and focus on gender roles, norms and relations (ICARDA) can provide inspiration and governance mechanisms for CBOs, thus fostering transition from single crop, conventional agrosystems to agroecological models. Moreover, carbon farming leverage may create a unique opportunity for CBOs to establish new value chains and differential value offers able to increase smallholders' profitability.