Effective Policy Reform by Co-Design? Insights from a Comparative Analysis of Policy Co-Design Processes for Transforming EU Agri-Food Systems

Agri-food policies in the European Union (EU) are widely criticised for being ineffective in addressing the multiple crises facing the sector, such as biodiversity loss, climate change, food security, and resource scarcity. Earlier attempts to reform the policy have led to the layering of new objectives and instruments, creating complex policy mixes with little instrument innovations and a relatively stable core, focusing on farm income. Policy design is the deliberate attempt to create policy mixes characterised by coherent policy objectives and consistent policy instruments that are suitable to achieve the objectives in an effective, efficient and legitimate way. Co-design of public policies, based on the principles of design thinking and giving stakeholders as experts of their own lifeworld a central role, has been proposed as an innovative approach for the development of policy options. Can co-design approaches be an alternative to traditional policymaking for initiating reforms in agri-food policy? This paper presents the results of a comparative analysis of ten policy co-design processes in nine EU member states conducted in the EU research project ENFASYS. Drawing on material from 20 workshops, 16 individual interviews and 8 survey formats, we examine the policy objectives, instruments and calibration developed by agri-food stakeholders in co-design processes. Our findings show that conflicting objectives are inevitable due to the multiplicity of challenges and that stakeholders prefer financial incentives and rarely choose regulatory instruments to achieve the stated objectives. Overall, there are few instrument innovations in the policy mixes developed, but rather recalibrations of existing instruments. By analysing the outcomes of these participatory policy development processes, this paper discusses the suitability of co-design approaches in agri-food policy to develop effective, efficient and legitimate agri-food policy responses.