Drivers of Change: Experts' Perceptions of European Agri‐Food and Livestock Farming Systems

ABSTRACT Transforming agri‑food and livestock farming systems to increase their sustainability and climate resilience requires a clear understanding of what drives change and how driving forces are related. This study increases systems knowledge by identifying driving forces and actors that shape European agri‐food and livestock farming systems, examining changes in experts' perceptions over a 5‐year period, and exploring perceived relationships among the driving forces. We conducted semi‐structured interviews and an expert workshop in two research phases and examined the collected data with a qualitative content analysis to identify driving forces, actors, and causal relationships. We then calculated three similarity coefficients to quantify the overlap between reported driving forces in these phases for each engaged organization and performed structural analyses of the empirically derived system diagram. In total, we identified 50 (79) driving forces for European agri‐food (livestock farming) systems, 50%–71% of which were mentioned consistently in both phases. Four driving forces, namely the European import of agricultural commodities, per‐capita‐meat demand, speed of agricultural technology development , and technology uptake , were universally recognized as important by all participating experts in both phases. The study identified two additional promising drivers of change in livestock farming systems: increasing political attention to climate change mitigation and adaptation and citizens' environmental awareness . By integrating diverse perspectives, this study enhances our system‑level understanding of drivers of change in European agri‑food and livestock farming systems. This increased knowledge supports the alignment of agricultural and climate policies that can transform these systems, thus increasing their sustainability and climate resilience.