CSA D1.1 State-of-play, gaps, barriers & drivers of CS-AS across MS & AC

This deliverable aims to provide the overview of the context for climate smart advisory services in all ClimateSmartAdvisors project’s partner countries and laying a foundation to develop the CSA network in each of those countries. Through the deliverable we aim to understand the current state-of-play of the conditions and context in which agricultural advisors are currently working in across project countries. For this purpose, a survey was launched in the beginning of the project (September 2023) and was completed by 1104 respondents. The survey was carried out to collect answers from all partner countries to be able to obtain a better understanding on the state, gaps, drivers, and barriers for climate smart advise in regional and national levels relevant for the project implementation. The results of the survey will provide a basis for further development of the CSA network at national level in each partner country and will form the starting point for the work in multiple project work packages. The deliverable consists of results and analysis following the structure of the survey with four main sections: 1) socio-demographics; 2) interaction with other stakeholders; 3) knowledge levels and; 4) beliefs and attitudes. The results and analysis of the survey suggest generally a positive base for the development work of CSA with responses from various socio-demographic groups, indicating a good mix of perspectives. The attitudes towards CSF, both from advisors themselves and in broader national networks, appears to be mainly positive and the knowledge levels of advisors on climate change related matters typically good. The knowledge repositories and support for managing and communicating the complexity of the climate change related matters are some of the aspects recognised as common challenges across countries which can be addressed with the coming ClimateSmartAdvisors activities. In general, the results do not support drawing strict conclusions based on the regions or specific socio-demographic groups of advisors, but rather to recognise the variation between country levels in multiple aspects. Furthermore, the results do provide support to develop the activities planned as a part of ClimateSmartAdvisors and to allow for a better design of those activities, so that they address the needs and desires of the advisors recognised from the results. It is worth acknowledging that the conclusions are limited to get an insight on the project level, and are not a representative sample of European advisors.