Supporting the transition to Climate-Smart Agriculture with the EU-funded BEATLES project
BEATLES shows how behavioural insights can support Climate-Smart Agriculture through practical tools, policy recommendations and a dedicated online Tool Suite.
The BEATLES project, funded by the EU’s Horizon Europe programme, has explored how behavioural, economic, social, institutional and policy factors influence the adoption of Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) practices across European farming systems and value chains.
Running from 2022 to 2026, BEATLES placed behavioural change and systemic transition at the centre of the CSA debate. Through five Use Cases covering different agricultural systems and value chains, the project generated evidence on the barriers, motivations and enabling conditions shaping the decisions of farmers and agri-food actors.
This evidence has been translated into practical policy recommendations, tools and capacity-building resources to help policymakers, Managing Authorities, public administrations and advisory actors support more effective CSA transitions.
Policy recommendations for Climate-Smart Agriculture
BEATLES developed 12 EU-level policy recommendations to support the integration of CSA into future EU policy frameworks, particularly in the context of the post-2027 CAP and the emerging National and Regional Partnership Plans (NRPPs) for 2028–2034.
These recommendations are presented in the document Policy recommendations and tools (D5.1), whose full version will soon be available on the project’s public deliverables page.
They address the main conditions needed to move from climate-smart ambition to practical implementation:
- Ensure horizontal and territorial policy coherence for CSA adoption in NRPPs.
- Establish adaptive and learning-based NRPPs with structured CSA transition pathways.
- Integrate fairness dimensions into CSA intervention design.
- Strengthen differentiated support for vulnerable farmers and territories.
- Integrate behavioural approaches for CSA adoption.
- Shift from green architecture to CSA transition pathways within NRPPs.
- Ensure sufficient and well-sequenced financial support for CSA transitions.
- Use CAP simplification to enhance CSA uptake and administrative feasibility.
- Strengthen AKIS and advisory systems to support behavioural CSA adoption.
- Implement territorially disaggregated, outcome-based CSA monitoring systems at NUTS-3 level.
- Integrate digitalisation as enabling infrastructure for CSA.
- Align NRPPs with long-term CSA transition pathways and EU strategic goals for 2040.
Each recommendation is presented through a practical technical fiche, including the policy objective, policy challenge, rationale, implementation steps, lead actors and expected impact. Together, they provide an operational roadmap to help policymakers translate CSA priorities into concrete policy action.
A practical CSA Policy Toolkit
To help turn the policy recommendations into action, and as a practical complement to the project publication Policy recommendations and tools, BEATLES developed the Climate-Smart Agriculture Policy Toolkit, a decision-support framework for policymakers, Managing Authorities, governance bodies, paying agencies and technical assistance actors involved in the design, implementation and evaluation of CAP-aligned interventions and NRPPs.
The toolkit follows the full policy cycle and includes three complementary tools:
- DIAGNOSE: CSA Policy Readiness and Enabling Conditions Checklist, to help assess whether the institutional, financial, governance and knowledge-related conditions needed for CSA implementation are in place.
- DESIGN: CSA Intervention Design Tool for CAP-aligned NRPP programming 2028–2034, to support the design of coherent CSA intervention pathways.
- MONITOR: CSA Performance Monitoring Tool for NRPP implementation 2028–2034, to support the definition of indicators and the monitoring of CSA-related outcomes in terms of productivity, adaptation, mitigation and wider sustainability performance.
These tools are complemented by policy briefs, Use Case-specific policy insights, recommendation fiches and BEATLES contributions to EU consultations.
The Toolkit is hosted on the dedicated online CSA Tool Suite, which provides a practical entry point to explore the project’s tools, recommendations and supporting materials beyond its lifetime. Readers can register to receive updates when the platform becomes available to users. An introductory video is also available on YouTube, offering an early overview of the platform and its main functionalities.
EU Multi-Actor Working Group: from evidence to policy learning
A key part of BEATLES’ policy work was the EU Multi-Actor Working Group, which created a structured European space for policy learning, dialogue and co-creation around CSA.
The Working Group involved 122 experts from 21 EU Member States, including policymakers, Managing Authorities, researchers, advisory organisations, farmers’ representatives, civil society actors and agri-food stakeholders. Through this process, BEATLES connected project evidence with the practical experience of actors involved in shaping, implementing and supporting agricultural policy.
The EU Multi-Actor Working Group benefited from a series of external presentations and exchanges with leading European initiatives and institutions, including DG AGRI, the Joint Research Centre (JRC), EIP-AGRI and the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC). These contributions provided valuable insights into the latest technical developments, innovations and policy-relevant initiatives taking place across EU institutions.
By integrating these external perspectives into the discussions, the BEATLES Multi-Actor Working Group was able to strengthen its evidence base and ensure that its policy recommendations were developed in parallel with, and informed by, the most recent policy needs. This collaborative approach enriched the overall policy learning process and reinforced the relevance and practical applicability of the project's recommendations.
The Working Group was implemented through three online pan-European workshops and a final policy session. The first workshop explored early BEATLES findings in relation to CAP reform and CSA. The second adopted a policy hackathon format to co-design solutions and scaling pathways for CSA uptake towards 2030 and 2040. The third focused on fairness in EU agri-food policy and how it can be translated into practical steps for policy design, implementation and evaluation. The final policy session presented and discussed the BEATLES policy recommendations and tools, with a particular focus on their potential application and scaling through current and future EU policy instruments.
This dialogue process was complemented by an online consultation targeting more than 150 experts, which helped collect feedback on the proposed recommendations, identify policy priorities and validate the relevance of the emerging Toolkit and policy outputs.
Building a policy legacy beyond the project
BEATLES leaves behind a set of resources designed to support the uptake of Climate-Smart Agriculture beyond the project’s lifetime. Its policy recommendations, CSA Policy Toolkit, policy briefs, Use Case insights, consultation contributions and capacity-building materials can inform the post-2027 CAP debate, the 2028–2034 programming period, future National and Regional Partnership Plans, EU consultations and wider discussions on sustainable agri-food systems.
By combining behavioural evidence, stakeholder co-creation, territorial experience and practical policy tools, BEATLES has created a policy-support framework that can help public authorities and advisory actors move from climate-smart ambition to implementation.
Find out more about BEATLES results in the project dossier.
Authors: Miranda García (Communication and Project Officer, AEIDL) & Blanca Casares Guillén (Policy Expert for the BEATLES project, AEIDL)