What Happens When a European Project Arrives at Cloughjordan Ecovillage?

Last week, the EU4Advice consortium gathered in Ireland for a Living Lab cross visit hosted at the Cloughjordan Ecovillage, a place where sustainability is a daily practice.

The Ecovillage is built on 67 acres of agricultural land and aims to create a sustainable community in ecological, social, and economic terms. Cultivate, one of EU4Advice’s partners, promotes sustainable living and learning at the Ecovillage, and they organised the gathering.

Surrounded by projects such as the Cloughjordan Community Farm, which started in 2008, people come together to grow food for local families using organic and biodynamic methods.

But what is important about visiting this place is what goes on between people. A Living Lab in practice. The Cross Visit, which took place from 21-23 April at the WeCreate Centre, was a laboratory for sharing and learning together.

Over two days of intense work, partners from various Living Labs: the Irish Living Lab (led by Davie Philip); the Spanish Living Lab (led by Jorge Molero); the Hungarian Living Lab (led by Viktoria Nagy); the Dutch Living Lab (led by Mark Fredriks) aligned their efforts, shared updates, and tested tools in practice. The program was a mix of reflection and practice. It started with a collective reflection on Living Lab work packages and deliverables, and continued with governance and the relationship between advisory systems and policy makers. And it wasn’t all talk. Learning didn’t stop with the Living Labs team; participants joined the broader community for a simple lunch (soup and bread) at the Food Hub and then headed out to the Community Farm. What if you sit next to a baker and find he is teaching others around Ireland, so we will have a baker in each village? That was Joe, from Ecovillage. A conversation like this quickly evolved into a discussion of short food supply chains, local food resilience and knowledge exchange in the food system

They learned about the CSA, seed bank and local food system. From tools to transformation. A key part of the visit was a participatory session around the “Local Food Canvas,” a tool for mapping food systems, identifying pressures and pushing for a better future for local food systems. Through this exercise, partners considered the current state of food systems, more resilient local systems, and how to get there. This was not just a tool-testing exercise; it was an opportunity to link local practice to the EU4Advice learning framework and to understand local advisory needs. Enhancing advisory systems throughout Europe. One of the main objectives of the visit was Task 2.3: embedding Short Food Supply Chain (SFSC) advisors in national Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation Systems (AKIS). The Living Labs presented their work on developing roadmaps to integrate advisory services into national systems, alongside their successes, their lessons learned and the complexities of working across different policy and governance environments.

Discussions touched on: recognition and engagement of advisors, collaboration with national AKIS coordinators, and how to learn from pilots to spread success. This is the essence of the EU4Advice project: learning from peers, helping each other, and adapting. Beyond the project

The cross visit looked to the future. Workshops on replicability and sustainability looked beyond the project: at how tools, knowledge and advice services can continue to expand and impact on policy and practice across Europe after the project.

When place meets purpose, like this time, it was the location that made the difference. Cloughjordan is an illustration of the EU4Advice vision. A place that has already integrated local food networks, local community and sustainability. And that changes the conversation. It makes theory more practical. It brings conversations to life. And it reinforces the importance of the work. Because sometimes the best way to begin understanding a system is to share a table, share stories, share a meal, and share ideas about the future.