The EU-funded Horizon 2020 “Small Farms, Small Food Businesses and Sustainable Food Security” (SALSA) project has brought together 16 partners, from European and African countries and the UN system, who have a unique blend of multidisciplinary expertise and experience from a wide range of geographical and socio-political realities. 
SALSA has aimed to provide a better understanding of the current and potential contribution of small farms and food businesses to sustainable Food and Nutrition Security (FNS).

Food security is critical to creating an inclusive and peaceful world. Accelerating the pace of innovation in agriculture will be key to addressing the many challenges facing our planet. ACS Agricultural Science & Technology (AAST) supports the building of inclusive science communities to speed progress toward the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

AgriFoodTech start-ups are coming to be seen as relevant players in the debate around and reality of the transformation of food systems, especially in view of emerging or already-established novel technologies (such as Artificial Intelligence, Sensors, Precision Fermentation, Robotics, Nanotechnologies, Genomics) that constitute Agriculture 4.0 and Food 4.0. However, so far, there have only been limited studies of this phenomena, which are scattered across disciplines, with no comprehensive overview of the state of the art and outlook for future research.

The overarching research question developed in the Conceptual Framework conveys the core objective of SALSA (What is the contribution of small farms and of the related food businesses to sustainable FNS in a wide range of foos systems?) by highlighting that the research follows a systemic approach.

The SALSA project aims at assessing the current and future role of small farms and related small food businesses in contributing to sustainable food and nutrition security at regional level in Europe and in selected African regions, and to identify the conditions for them to meet the demand for food in an increasingly populated and resource-constrained world.

In the SALSA project, transdisciplinarity means a process of integration of knowledge between researchers belonging to different disciplines (in our case, sociology, economics, anthropology, geography) and with non-academic actors such as NGOs members, innovation brokers, policy makers). The role of transdisciplinary theory building within SALSA is to link diverse areas of knowledge through a co-constructed conceptual framework in order to underpin effective action towards improved FNS.

This deliverable is a report of the work done in the framework of the Small Farms, Small Food Business and Sustainable Food Security (SALSA) project in task 2.3 of Work Package (WP2) as defined in the description of work (DOW) of the SALSA project. The title of the task according to the DOW is Task 2.3 - Small farms characterization in the reference regions.

This document presents an in-depth comparative assessment of the local and regional food systems analysed in SALSA. Its aim is to improve the understanding of the current and potential role of SF in regional Food and Nutrition Security (FNS). This deliverable is a synthesis report on the main insights gained from the analysis completed for the 30 reference regions.

The aim of WP5 is to answer the question: What governs Small Farm and Small Food Business activities? The specific aim of this report (and the related task 5.1) is to identify and assess the forms of governance that influence, both positively and negatively, the contribution of small farms and small food businesses (SF/SFB) to Sustainable Food and Nutritional Security (FNS). In doing so, the work proceeds around the following objectives: