our living labs
Root2Fork operates through four Living Labs spanning the continent, from Portugal to Norway. Each is a working testbed where multi-strata agroforestry isn’t just studied but practiced, refined, and demonstrated in real conditions.
These Living Labs pioneer msAFS on the ground: planting perennial crops within orchard systems, then connecting what grows directly to the people who cook and eat it. In each region, we work hand in hand with retailers, local kitchens, restaurants, and public canteens, where chefs bring edible perennials onto real menus. The fork isn’t a metaphor, it’s where our work ends up.
Each Living Lab nucleates regional change through the power of example: showing what works, engaging end users early, and ensuring every innovation is demand-driven, not top-down.
Food systems don’t change in laboratories. They change when farmers, chefs, consumers, policymakers, and researchers move together. Root2Fork is built around three focus areas that connect all stakeholders and enable a global, cross-disciplinary assessment of food production’s real impacts:
Designing and Scaling msAFS. Working participatively across our four Living Labs, we consolidate multi-strata agroforestry designs and bring practical innovations to market that support the agroecological transition.
Measuring What Matters. Through remote sensing, ground-truthing, and participatory testing, we assess ecosystem services, social dimensions, and economic performance.
Bridging Science to Practice, Policy, and Society. Findings are only useful if they reach people. Through innovation and communication hubs, local and regional workshops, and targeted outreach, we disseminate results broadly — bridging the gap from research to application, to policy, and to the public.
By removing barriers to adoption from design through to multi-actor engagement, Root2Fork unlocks the potential of agroforestry to reconcile productivity, economic viability, food security, and ecosystem function — under the real-world uncertainty and transition that define today’s agriculture.