Trust-based policymaking: connecting past, present, future

Recent farmers’ protests have highlighted a tension that many policymakers recognise: technically robust policies can still encounter resistance when they are experienced against a backdrop of uncertainty and strained trust. A trauma-informed lens helps interpret these reactions as more than resistance to change, but, as rational responses shaped by long-term experiences of instability, stigma and perceived unfairness. 

This is why the EU Policy Lab launched a policy experiment exploring how a trauma‑informed approach can enrich ongoing work such as the Directorate-General for Agriculture (DG AGRI) work on Generational Renewal in Agriculture. In this perspective, trauma is understood as cumulative, collective and often intergenerational – transmitted through stories, institutions and political attitudes, not only individual psychology. This means that every new reform interacts not just with current incentives, but also with an emotional memory of how previous transitions have been felt in communities’ everyday lives. 

Futures Garden: seeds of constructive experimentation 

Within Futures Garden, the EU Policy Lab treats futures work as something to be ‘provo-typed’ (think proactive + prototype), not only imagined. The trauma-informed policymaking experiment with the Directorates-General for: Agriculture and Rural Development, Human Resources and Research and Innovation and the JRC was conceived in this spirit of constructive innovation. It explored how policy design can be further strengthened when trust and lived experience are treated as explicit design parameters, alongside effectiveness, efficiency and legal soundness. 

A time journey through farming’s emotional history 

At the heart of the workshop was a “time journey” through European farming, from feudal agrarian systems to today’s Green Deal debates. Participants worked with a Community Trauma Map that connected different policy eras to their emotional legacies – for example, feelings of helplessness under feudalism, grief and uprooting during rural exodus, and devaluation or alienation in periods of industrial agriculture. 

More recent layers captured how globalisation, liberalisation and repeated Common Agricultural Policy reforms can be experienced as volatility and “rules that keep changing”, while trade developments, imbalances in the food system and food safety concerns can feed narratives of unfairness, a lack of agency or expendability. Today, environmental conditionality and climate targets may sometimes be felt as moral scrutiny, adding to concerns about dignity when farmers are framed as polluters or subsidy dependents. 

Seen through this long-term view, farmers’ reactions are reframed as important feedback signals about how policy transitions land in practice, rather than as a rejection of environmental or social ambitions. 

From trauma themes to trust principles 

The workshop distilled recurring trauma themes (such as loss of autonomy, economic insecurity, intergenerational rupture, exhaustion, stigma and ecological stress) into a set of practical design options and overarching trust principles that can enrich policymaking across domains.  

• Experiences of limited autonomy pointed towards co-design and participatory decision-making, for instance through regional panels where farmers help shape eco-scheme criteria and more collaborative, learning‑oriented farm visits.
• Feelings of unfairness or betrayal suggested strengthening transparent, predictable communication: multi‑year transition calendars, trust audits, and narrative repair statements that openly acknowledge trade‑offs and past challenges.
• Stigma and shame pointed to narrative work – public storytelling campaigns celebrating farming as stewardship, neutral and respectful language in regulations, and recognition awards for trust‑building – while intergenerational strain inspired ideas such as family transition grants, succession indicators in CAP evaluations, and structured mentorship between senior and young farmers.
• Exhaustion and overload highlighted the value of simplification and care, including rest windows with no major regulatory updates during peak seasons, simplified self‑reporting, and funded mental health and peer support in rural areas.  

Taken together, these insights are captured in a Trust Principles framework that encourages institutions to:  

• acknowledge what came before;
• communicate predictably and plainly;
• co‑design with, not for;
• make power visible and share it;
• honour emotional and cultural realities; and
• sustain relationships over time.  

Rather than replacing existing tools and frameworks, this approach complements them by making trust, dignity and psychological safety more visible and intentional in the policy design space.  

Why this matters beyond farming 

This trauma experiment connects directly to broader questions of democratic performance and social resilience. Research highlighted in the science-for-policy brief suggests that chronic stress and trauma can be associated with lower interpersonal trust, reduced civic participation and weaker engagement with institutions – precisely where stability and inclusion are most needed. 

For foresight, design and behavioural practitioners, the lesson is that anticipatory innovation benefits when it works with emotional and historical realities, not around them. Futures Garden’s trauma-informed approach broadens what counts as relevant evidence, bringing intergenerational fairness, lived experience and collective memory into the design phase of DG AGRI's Generational Renewal Strategy in a way that can support implementation.  

For policymakers, it offers a constructive way to deepen existing practice: positioning farmers not just as stakeholders to be consulted, but as partners in shaping credible, durable and socially resilient transitions.  

For this trauma-informed policymaking experiment, we collaborated with DG AGRI. However, this approach can be applied to support all target audiences that policymakers engage with to bring past, present and future together.