Building an interactive AgriDemo-Hub community: enhancing farmer to farmer learning

ended

The overall aim of AgriDemo-F2F is to enhance peer-to-peer learning within the commercial farming community. The project will utilize the experience of different actors and involve practitioner partners throughout the project to deepen understanding of effective on farm demonstration activities (multi-actor approach). In a first step, we will conduct a geo-referenced inventory of open commercial farms that engage in demonstration activities in Europe, detailing the sectors, themes and topics on which they provide expertise, and describe the mediation techniques they apply. Case studies will be selected to perform an in-depth comparative analysis. Important dimensions in selection are: 1) a wide-spread geo-graphical coverage within Europe, 2) representative for EU-agricultural sectors, systems and territories and 3) low tech versus high tech in mediation techniques. Case studies will be described, analysed and compared on 1) their network structure (actors, roles and governance characteristics), and 2) the mechanisms and tools used for recruitment, interaction and learning. Furthermore, effectiveness of the different approaches within the case-studies will be assessed through an evaluation of the extent and nature of learning. Both regional and international multi-actor meetings will use the results of the cross comparative case study analysis to i) identify a set of best practical approaches for both the on farm demonstration of research results (science driven) and the spreading of best farming practices among practitioners (innovation driven) and ii) recommendations for AKIS governance and policies on how to support effective on farm demonstration activities. The empowerment of both the commercial farming and policy community to uptake these best practices will occur through structuring the project results and farm demo showcases on the AgriDemo-Hub, an interactive, user oriented, web-map application.