Agreen’Smart : digital technologies for a more sustainable agriculture

AGreen’Smart is a project aiming to link the added values gathered from the use of digital technologies in crop farming and animal husbandry (respectively precision agriculture and precision livestock farming), and related tools to valorize data (big data, artificial intelligence or robotics) and the mitigation and adaptation to climate change for a more sustainable agriculture including economic, environmental and social challenges.

AGreen’Smart will focus on the achievement of these environmental and climate change goals (the “ green » part) through the use of digital technologies (the “smart » part) in agriculture.

An european ambition

For the two last decades, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has centered the support to the producer and increasingly put environmental at the center of the conditions for financial support.

The current CAP 2014 2020 is promoting sustainable farming and innovation in order to strengthen the competitiveness of the sector. The post 2020 CAP 2021 2027 guideline has been already described and three of its nine objectives focus on dealing with environmental and climate change challenges.

In addition, in 2019 following the declaration of “a smart and sustainable digital future for European agriculture and rural areas”, practically all Member States mentioned the crucial inputs of new technologies and digitization in agriculture to support “a higher environmental and climate ambition” in this new CAP.

Nevertheless, the adoption of these technologies by farmers is still low in EU, and their role to ensure the achievement of these “green » ambitions is still blurry.

That is why AGreen’Smart wants to improve the training of the young generation of engineers to understand and to be aware of the importance of considering technologies as levers of the improvements of agricultural practices, to be more adapted to current context of climate in different European regions and to reach their sustainability. 

Our objectives

Our program aims to answer these issues through the following objectives and activities by :

- establishing and continuing a high quality European teaching network on different and transdisciplinary subjects

- maintaining perennial European partnerships between Higher Education Institutes, in the pedagogical and research domains, public authorities and private companies for the improvement of higher education that is more in agreement with the professional and labour market needs

-training three student cohorts over the program and by providing transdisciplinary skills in agriculture, use of digital technologies in crop farming and animal husbandry, mitigation and adaptation to climate change, sustainable agriculture and agroecology

-providing to a large public the possibility to improve their knowledge about the previously cited domains through the construction of a catalogue of open access online courses

- cultivating research partnerships between Higher Education Institutes and the professional sector for the development of innovative technologies for a more sustainable agriculture where benefits could reach the most important end users of this sector the farmers

- developing a continuous training offer, leading to the development of a full master program about “smart and green agriculture” for the next generation of engineers who will be in permanent contact with the socio professional sector and the farmers during their career

Content

This 3 year program mis composed by 3 main activities :

• Group project

25h - March to june each yea

• E-learning refresher
40h - online classes - March to June each year

• Intensive programs
70h – project, classes, visits, practical work - Hosted by different campuses - One session per year

Subjects covered


 

An European cooperation project

Agreen’ Smart focuses on cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices at the European level. This project is the joint effort of 7 European Universities of Life Sciences: Junia ISA France, UTAD Portugal, NMBU Norway, SLU Sweden, University of Helsinki Finland, University of Liège Gembloux Agro-BioTech Belgium, and Perrotis College Greece.

The partners involved in AGreen’Smart offer a synergistic cooperation through different and complementary topics useful for this project:crop and animal sciences, precision agriculture and precision livestock farming, robotics, big data and artificial intelligence, mitigation and adaptation to climate change, sustainable agriculture and agroecology.

The geographical diversity of the partners (Portugal and Greece for the Southern region, Sweden, Finland and Norway for the Northern region, France and Belgium from the Central Western region) is covering different impact degrees of climate change, where each farmer has different adaptation of their practices and where public authorities, related to agriculture sector have adapted their strategies, from the general policy developed by EU through the CAP.

The inclusion of crop and animal sectors, and their association, are also very important as they are both contributing to climate change and will interest a wider public Last but not least, each partner is strongly involved at regional, national or international levels in professional organizations and networks of companies, farmers and other end users in the sector .

The project is therefore also the opportunity for the team to bring together these professional partners for their own benefit, as well as to assure the proper promotion and transfer of these new technologies to the end users


 

Erasmus + programm

This three-year project (2020-2023) is supported by The European Union's Erasmus+ programme.
Learn more
https://eacea.ec.europa.eu/erasmus-plus_en

 

Timeline

October 2020

Kick Off, Junia ISA, France

February 2021

Online 1st Transnational Meeting at SVERIGES LANTBRUKSUNIVERSITET, Sweden

June 2021

Intensive program at UNIVERSIDADE DE TRAS OS MONTES E ALTO DOURO, Portugal

February 2022

2nd transnational meeting at AMERICAN FARM SCHOOL POST SECONDARY EDUCATIONAL AND TRAINING ASSOCIATION, Greece

June 2022

Intensive program at HELSINGIN YLIOPISTO, Finland

February 2023

3rd Transnational meeting at NORGES MILJO OG BIOVITENSKAPLIGE UNIVERSITET, Norway

June 2023

Intensive program at Junia ISA, France

August 2023

Final symposium at Université de Liège (Gembloux agro-biotech), Belgium

The map shows in which WP each partner is involved. The last line in the boxes indicates the event hosted by each institution.