Around 22.2 million people work regularly in agriculture (8.7 million full-time equivalent workers), but the farming sector needs to attract a new generation of farmers with the necessary skills to live and work in a challenging context. They will have to produce more efficiently while protecting the environment; contribute to the fight against climate change; meet society's demands regarding healthy and balanced diets; and keep up with increasingly rapid scientific and technological progress. It is therefore essential that future farmers benefit from adequate agricultural education and training and acquire the various skills needed to adapt to a changing environment. The current common agricultural policy (CAP) places strong emphasis on knowledge sharing and innovation. In order to promote a more participative and equal approach to knowledge creation in the agriculture sector, the project comprehends a complementary set of organisations which represent different interests and stakeholders and bring useful background and experience in order to enable trainers to reinforce their digital competences and farmers, agricultural and rural workers to upskill or learn new skills and diversify their activities and initiatives. In compliance with the European Parliament that considers to be necessary to promote continuing vocational training for farmers and agricultural workers in future, and to promote the dissemination of scientific knowledge and innovation, to ensure adaptability to a changing economic environment, and in compliance with the challenges presented by the Covid-19 for the education sector, the project is aimed at equipping trainers with a digital environment where students and farmers can develop climate smart agriculture skills, generate awareness about challenges of climate change, enable free access to practical knowledge in order to invest and modify agricultural practices. The project foresees, in fact, the development of two main results: -a MOOC about climate smart agriculture to provide key information about CSA and to present learners some useful practices in order to improve land management in view of biodiversity principles and climate change adaptation needs -an online Simulator that will allow learners, small farmers and farmholders to simulate in a virtual environment the benefits on a given area of the implementation of CSA measures presented in the MOOC. The MOOC and the Simulator are addressing mainly future farmers, students, expert farmers, farmers’ associations and organisations that are interested to acquire CSA-related skills or to upskill their farming competences and to test them into a virtual environment. Accessing to the MOOC and the Simulator, in fact, we expect to enhance trainers’ capacity to transmit and create innovative farming knowledge, approaches and practices, through the use of critical climate scenarios (scenario-based approach) and increase in this way students and farmers’ competences on climate change adaption practices (soil and water management, climate resilient crops etc.). Therefore, the use of open digital practices will improve trainers and users’ confidence and usability of digital tools, especially in agriculture and in agricultural education, and will facilitate the spread of open information on the topic, by creating a transnational knowledge community.
For this reason, the project was aimed at creating a digital simulation learning environment which gave to trainers the possibility to have access to innovative training and assessment methods that can support them in digitalizing the training of the most non-digital sector. Moreover, the environment also improved the development of CSA skills for students and farmers through the creation of ad hoc training materials and tools in order to generate awareness about challenges of climate change and sensitize them about CSA benefits. The project objectives were therefore: -Support the digitalization of agriculture-related education -Deliver quality digital education through simulation-based activities -Improve trainers’ digital planning and design of lessons with supportive teaching and assessing tool -Promote the development of CSA skills -Provide students and farmers with open tools to support decision-making and planning in the framework of CSA -Enhance good practices sharing in the framework of CSA.
Agriculture provides food, services and resources and guarantees the livelihood of millions of people worldwide. The productivity of EU agriculture has increased significantly since 1950, mainly as result of intensification and specialisation. Nevertheless, agriculture is one of the most climate-dependent socio-economic sectors, since most of the agriculture productivity and quality are directly dependent on different climatic factors (IPCC, 2019). Adaptation to climate change is widely recognised as a fundamental response to climate change especially for the agriculture, as it has important socio-economic implications for society and food security. Despite its vulnerability, current intensive agricultural productions are unsustainable and can cause land degradation, nutrient losses and loss of biodiversity, contribute to decreased water quality and water scarcity, and ultimately contribute to GHGs and air pollutants’ emissions, which in turn contribute to climate change (UNEP, 2016). Eurostat shows that the vast majority of European farmers (69.8 %) learned their skills through practical experience (2013). This presents a clear challenge to the educational sector which has to propose innovative learning contents in line with the market and society needs, yet to present them in a practical and attractive way to simultaneously respect the “nature” of the subject (agricultural studies) and to make them available in an open and digital environment and condition. This challenge became even more evident with the adoption of distance learning during COVID-19.