The third workshop of the Portuguese RAIN was held on June 25, 2024, and it was decided to make the meeting in the village of Soeira, near Bragança, in the building of the Parish Council where we were received by the president of the parish council of the village, Maria Alice and the farmer José Alberto who is also a member of the Portuguese Agroforestry Innovation Network (AF4EU). The goal is to be closer to farmers, become more aware of their work on this land, promote the region, and share knowledge. A total of 23 participants attended the 3rd RAIN meeting in Portugal, including farmers, researchers, multipliers and advisors.
The meeting began with a brief presentation of the objectives of the AF4EU project, since at this meeting we received new members. Then, in session 1 we did the exercise regarding the selection, analysis and validation of value chains for our region. Four groups were formed consisting of stakeholders from different areas of action, and could among themselves expose their ideas, questions and suggestions, resulting in important changes in order to shorten value chains, value work in exploration, as well as the products. This was followed by the presentation of the Decision Support System regarding sustainability indicators and the graphical user interface and two interactions using the Mentimeter application in which participants could express their point of view about the indicators of sustainability and accessibility of the decision support platform (DSS), focused on the development of sustainable business models, created by AF4EU.
Session 2 presented the global results considered as priorities in the first RAIN, regarding technical, economic, educational and political innovations, as well as the content structure of the Handbook for business models of agroforestry systems. Also in this session, the contents and titles proposed by the organization were discussed as themes to develop in the various dissemination materials, such as, practical summaries, technical sheets, videos, infographics and policy summary. The discussion and contribution were very enriching, with proposals to elaborate materials that clarify the carbon credit market, preservation and valorisation of indigenous breeds, practices of business models with circular economy, among others. In the third session were presented the contents of the training modules for Advisors and listed the potential members of RAIN to conduct the courses. It was proposed to the stakeholders to send their suggestions regarding the contents of the modules and thus enable their contribution to the best formulation of the course structure. Finally, after lunch in Soeira, there was a field trip to the farm that involves the silvopastoral system of one of the members of the Portuguese RAIN, José Alberto, who had the opportunity to present to others his way of working.