From Local Action to Transformation: Policy Design Spaces to Overcome Systemic Lock-Ins in European Farming Systems

Agricultural and farming systems across Europe face mounting challenges, from sustainability crises to systemic lock-ins that hinder transformative change. The ENFASYS project addresses these issues through transformative strategies developed in 10 diverse case studies, including regenerative agriculture, protein autonomy of dairy cattle farms, biodiversity conservation, and pig farming. While these strategies were tailored to the specific lock-ins of their respective farming systems, the project seeks to draw lessons that can inform EU-wide policy frameworks, particularly in the context of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) reform. This paper builds on prior work conducted within the ENFASYS project, where policy mixes were co-designed in each case study to address specific systemic challenges. These policy mixes were then evaluated using policy design space analyses, which assessed institutional, structural, and actor-related factors shaping the feasibility and potential for transformative policy implementation. The optimal space for successful policy design occurs when the government’s willingness to design effective policies is high, and the necessary capacities to develop and implement them are available. These factors revealed both barriers and opportunities for transformative change across diverse governance and agricultural contexts. Methodologically, the analysis proceeded in several phases. The first phase involved case study workshops that assessed the policy design space by identifying policy designers and evaluating willingness and capacity levels. Strategies to implement the proposed policy mixes were developed using a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis. In the second phase, a Cross-Case Study Workshop synthesized insights across the 10 case studies, enabling a comparative analysis to identify shared challenges, patterns, and overarching principles that bridge local strategies with broader governance frameworks. Moreover, the paper will include the results of three more workshops with EU stakeholders planned for spring 2025. In particular, this paper explores the evolving global policy agendas—centered on competitiveness, security, and resilience—and their implications for agriculture and food systems. By operationalizing the policy design space concept, this study examines how these agendas interact with and sometimes conflict with traditional paradigms like agri-food exceptionalism and productivism. The analysis highlights the tensions and synergies between emerging goals of competitiveness, security, and resilience and identifies pathways for designing transformative agricultural interventions that align with sustainability and equity principles. The contribution of this paper is to provide actionable insights into the design of adaptive governance frameworks and transformative policies that align local actions with broader sustainability goals. By emphasizing the role of public policies in overcoming systemic lock-ins, this study underscores the importance of coherence, consistency, and adaptability in addressing structural barriers. It further demonstrates how empirical analysis can critique existing CAP frameworks, identify gaps and opportunities for improvement, and inform the development of resilient, inclusive, and sustainable farming systems across Europe.