Collaborative Agri-food Chains: Driving Innovation in Territorial Food Systems and Improving Outcomes for Producers and Consumers
COACH is a 3-year EU funded project focusing on collaborative agri-food initiatives anchored in territorial food systems.
The project aims to facilitate collaboration between farmers, consumers, local governments and other actors to scale up short agri-food chains which rebalance farmers’ position, create win-wins for producers and consumers and drive innovation in territorial food systems. The project began on 1st November 2020.
Why COACH?
Farmers and small operators are often in a weak position in the value chain. They lack bargaining power, face barriers to accessing markets, and struggle to achieve a fair income.
At the same time, due to growing public awareness of the environmental crisis, and the rise of diet-related ill-health, many consumers want to conveniently access high quality, healthy and sustainable foods. In response, many innovative consumer-driven opportunities for farmers to access markets are now available.
COACH will help coordinate strategies and disseminate good practices on how to strengthen territorial food systems and collaborative agri-food chains based on three building blocks: short food supply chains, civic food networks and sustainable public sector food procurement.
More information on the project can be found here and outcomes of the project are shared below.