Transitioning towards sustainable agriculture in the European Union through change management and transformational leadership

Abstract

This paper examined how Change Management and Transformational Leadership can be effective tools in transitioning towards sustainable agriculture in Europe. This paper starts with providing empirical evidence for climate change and shows that Northern and Southern Europe are impacted differently by climate change. Then this paper examined how climate change affects farmers in the different parts of Europe and what Societal, Environmental, Leadership and Organisational changes have to be made to transition towards sustainable agriculture in Europe. The qualitative analysis shows that, according to farmer associations, there is a need for a variety of options, a lack of communication and insufficient involvement of farmers on a policy making level. This paper ends with explaining how Change Management and Transformational Leadership can be used as tools to improve communication between stakeholders and improve the involvement of farmers in the co-creation process. Therefore, this paper concludes that Change Management and Transformational leadership will help the European Union in realising sustainable agriculture in Europe.