European farming is strongly affected by the high-impact of climate change emerging as a major threat on agriculture in Europe and across the world. Even though the digital transformation of agriculture promises to solve numerous environmental, economic and societal problems, and important steps have taken place towards this goal, agriculture sector is the least digitized of all major productive activities. By increasing digitalisation and adopting climate-smart practices in agricultural makes it is possible to produce products with ever higher efficiency and ever lower environmental impact. However, adoption of a climate-smart agriculture is not only a farmers’ concern. It is an interdisciplinary issue for agronomists, ICT experts, farmers, breeders etc. that Higher Education Institutions need to respond by developing new skills and technologies in their curricula. SmartROOT focuses on the preparation of a new Joint Master Degree program in the field of Mixed Farming Systems (MFS) by introducing user-friendly ICT tools to improve the resilience of agriculture subject to climate change. The rational is not only to prepare an international master degree program. It is also to actively involve students in the preparation process, receive their assessment and feedback on the ICT tools and material developed in terms of their operability, the user-friendly environment, the knowledge gained, the extent of international cooperation and the extent of satisfaction of their expectations. It will be a dynamic, inter-active process which ends to a Joint Master Degree program ready to run after the completion of the project. SmartROOT not only aims to prepare the future professionals in the agricultural sector, but also promotes ways for small and medium-sized farms to benefit from the new technologies by introducing and familiarising farmers to digital technologies. Farmers will gain knowledge on methodologies to foster the synergies between agricultural production, climate change mitigation and adaptation. SmartROOT expected results can be summarised in the following lines: 1) Build an international Joint Master Degree (JMD) program in Mixed Farming Systems ready to run after the completion of the project 2) Actively involve students to the preparation, test and assessment of a JMD prior its official launch 3) Enforce students’ insight to perceive the global trends on the agriculture domain in combination to climate change mitigation 4) Increase students’ and stakeholders (e.g. farmers) awareness on environment friendly agricultural trends to minimise the climate change consequences 5) Bridge the needs of agriculture experts and ICT scientists and familiarise farmers with ICT technological advancements 6) Develop open educational and management platforms available to be used by individual farmers and agriculture professionals 7) Act as a stepping stone towards the new challenge for HEIs in Europe as described under the Erasmus+ program: to create a network in the frame of the European Universities initiative SmartROOT’s results will be achieved through the following outputs: - O1 MFS e-book - O2 Open Hub for Knowledge Exchange - O3 SmartROOT Virtual Farm Hub - O4 MFS Educational Management Platform - O5 Augmented Reality Learning Environment - O6 SmartROOT Assessment Toolkit and Curriculum preparation 1. Introduce the context of CSA and Mixed Farming Systems to HEIs involved through co-design of their curricula 2. Educate students to new technological solutions for climate smart agriculture such as such as smart sensors, robots, UAVs, advanced tracking systems, long-range IoT-enabled sensors, middleware and gateways for extending the size of the potential monitoring area, facilitating, thus, data collection and processing of different farming systems at the same time, enabling optimal decisions, 3. Develop an Open Access Climate-Smart agriculture platform to foster, support and promote Mixed Farming Systems (MFS), by facilitating the design, the deployment, and the management of crop-livestock-forestry combinations towards sustainable, efficient, and climate-aware MFS systems. 4. Develop a continuous training platform, in the national language of each partner’s country, designed for the socio-professional network and based on the content and results of the 3-year project 5. Foster a European network between academia, experienced farmers and stakeholders, to engage end-users and allow exchange of knowledge on best practices on various combinations of mixed farming systems
Taking into consideration the fact that the agriculture and farming sectors are among the least digitized in Europe with very low ICT adoption by Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), SmartRoot project focused on five objectives targeting to raise the awareness of related stakeholders (farmers, breeders, entrepreneurs in the food industry, specialists in ICT and students) in MFS techologies. These are: a. The development of state-of-the-art technologies and practices in MFS educational approaches. b. The design and development of a Joint Master Degree program that offers academic and technical multidisciplinary knowledge in MFS taking into consideration the challenges that the agriculture domain faces. c. The establishment of an innovative ecosystem between HEIs, SMEs and experts fostering cooperation in a key sector of the European society and economy. d. The direct involvement of end users to the preparation and evaluation of the Joint Master Degree program e. The creation of a participatory environment for farming stakeholders, SMEs in the ICT domain and experts in related fields, by promoting collaboration with academics and fostering the adoption and utilization of project outputs in their everyday activities.
Integrated Mixed Farming Systems (MFS), constitute a promising solution to confront the on going food crisis, that can enhance nutrient cycling and increase natural resource usage efficiency. In integrated Mixed Farming environments, ICT, through data collection and analysis, plays a crucial role in farm management decision- making. Nevertheless, current education programs in European Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) do not provide the necessary skills and training tools for students and experts on MFS. In addition, it is essential to promote the engagement of end-users in the shift from conventional farming to MFS supported by ICT, to ensure the sustainability of MFS. This transition requires highly skilled personnel, multidisciplinary communities of practice, system change methodologies, behavioral decision-making and participatory procedures. The SmartROOT project has addressed the previously mentioned needs and has managed to (a) join together multidisciplinary scientific groups (agronomists, veterinarians, ICT specialists and entrepreneurial networks) and acquire know-how (b) deliver innovative education tools (c) design a Joint Master Degree program on MFS and ICT ready to use right after the project’s completion.