‘Back in October 2020 we sat together – around a zoom screen – with a diversity of stakeholders engaged and interested in agriculture and food production in the North of The Netherlands. Farmers, advisors, input suppliers, researchers, NGOs, private firms, public communicators and lobbyists were part of the initial discussions. All with the goal of supporting a transition to agroecology and regenerative farming in the region.
As a Professor on Resilient Landscapes at Groningen University, I was one of the stakeholders contributing from the realm of the academia. We came up with the idea of setting up an innovation platform that we termed: AReNA (Agroecology, Regenerative and Nature-driven Agriculture).