There is a major focus on digitisation by EU and national/regional policy-makers to ensure that digital innovation in agriculture keeps pace with other sectors and that the benefits of digitisation are available to and impact the wider farming community. However, there is a danger that digitisation and future innovations in digitisation will be hampered unless the rural advisory community is mobilised to take ownership of digital tools, advocate for their use and help farmers to participate in the digital age. Therefore, this project will engage, enable and empower the independent farm advisor community, creating a vibrant movement for farm advisory digital tools through sharing of tools, expertise and motivations.
FAIRshare has two main components:
Firstly, WPs 1, 2 and 3 will gather an evidence base of the digital tools and services used internationally, leveraging the vast networks of partner institutions that span the EU and non-EU countries. The inventory of tools will be accessible on an intuitively navigable online interface that has been co-designed with end users. Accompanying the tools in the online inventory will be information, for instance short ‘good practice’ vignettes, on how the tools may be used/adapted for use.
Secondly, WPs 4, 5 and 6 will generate and resource a ‘living laboratory’, empowering advisor peers from across the EU to interact with the online inventory and, in a series of workshops, to exchange, co-adapt, co-design and apply digital tools in their individual advisory contexts..
