The DARE project 

The project aim was to broaden the participation of adults operating in the wide context of food and agriculture and related research, in European cooperation in innovation activities. The project built a European network of low external input farmers, researchers and food activists involved in participatory research on the development of holistic methods and approaches on co-inquiry in food and farming,

The project widened the perspectives of the participants and increased awareness on the dynamics of European agricultural research, through the organisation of four partner meetings attended by a wide variety of actors whose assemblage enabled an eclectic learning environment.

Further to physical meetings that gathered participants not limited to partners’ organisations, throughout the project the partners shared information, in particular e-mail and teleconferencing, to discuss meeting modalities and the content development.  This allowed to fine-tune partners, to co-define the project advancement and to strenghten their cohesion.

More ambitiously, the DARE project aimed at setting up a core group of organisations that could trigger a broader mobilisation on the agricultural research democratisation. The DARE manifesto will contribute to spread the DARE partners intentions and to advance its agenda in a larger and more widely shared platform.

Setting up an enabling environment for such a debate to occur can be considered one of the main DARE objectives allowing partners to discuss and share outcomes at both European and national policy levels.

As knowledge and mobilisation on these issues are scattered among farmers and other civil society organisations, the partnership made use of the visits to exchange knowledge among participants and translate individual or single group knowledge among participants and translate individual or single group knowledge into common action.