Afinet: agroforestry innovation thematic network

AFINET is one of the seventeen thematic networks that the European Union has financed under the H2020 framework and it is supervised by the EIP-Agri in order to foster innovation in Europe. The main topic of AFINET is agroforestry a practice of deliberately integrating woody vegetation with crops and/or animal systems and the promotion of this practice to foster climate changes. AFINET follows a multi-actor approach linked to the nine Regional Innovations Networks created to identify main challenges and develop main innovations about agroforestry. Main challenges were related to technical, economic, communication and policy issues. Nine regional agroforestry networks (RAINs) were developed during the first year of the AFINET project between June and September 2017. A multi-actor approach was used to integrate different actors from a bottom-up perspective. Each meeting was organized through carefully designed and balanced subgroups to which key questions were asked dealing with main gaps and challenges facing agroforestry implementation. The questions were discussed by using the storm of ideas techniques and summarized with post-its on walls. The meetings were facilitated by the innovation brokers