demonstrations
Text by Anne-Charlotte Dockès, Marleen Gysen, Boelie Elzen, Peter Paree and Lies Debruyne based on the deliverables of AgriDemo-F2F and PLAID including input from the SCAR AKIS SWG members
Despite a widespread recognition amongst stakeholders that demonstrations are an effective way to exchange knowledge and facilitate transition, change and innovation, we observed several barriers, existing at various levels: in the organization, facilitation, hosting and attendance and access of on-farm demonstrations. Specifically farmers, advisors and (agricultural) students were mentioned as having most problems to overcome these barriers. (risks, money to attend). More specifically, a weak aspect of demo activities is the lack of compensation for using farm assets and farmers’ time for demo activities. The same is true for advisors and researchers, if not directly involved in the organisation of the particular demo event. Farmers involved in demo activities are often engaged through personal involvement, however this can lead to a situation where the long term sustainability of demo activities relies heavily of personal approaches of some individuals. Provision of public funds for farmers operating as demo farms is seen as a precondition of an effective and systematic inclusion of demo farm event funding in any national AKIS plan.
Furthermore, calls for projects, guidelines for proposals, evaluation criteria and project management requirements often do not pay attention to the strong relation between peer-to-peer learning and impact, as is clearly seen from the instrument of on-farm demonstrations which is often missing (see also Recommendation 1). Unfortunately, existing possibilities in Rural Deve-lopment Programmes (RDPs) to create easy-to-access funding possibilities for demonstrations are often not used.
Based on the case study analysis, and further discussions with stakeholders, it is clear that the current EU rules for RD programmes offer ample opportuni-ties for incentives and targeted funding of on-farm demonstrations. At the same time, there is a wide diversity in AKIS structures and composition across EU countries, resulting in very different ways of organising and supporting on-farm demonstrations across Europe. So, as a result, RDP measures and AKIS funding schemes are translated into national legislation in very different ways across Europe. The advantage of these national and regional structures in RDP is that they consider the existing local contexts and barriers (which are again diverse across EU countries), and adapt locally to help overcome them. There are lessons to be learnt, inspiration to be found in the way this is organised in other countries. This may help to vary the type of events and improve the own demo approaches.
It is up to the national AKIS coordination platform to take up this task.
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5.1.1 Introduction
This chapter is based on the work of two Horizon 2020 MA projects (AgriDemo-F2F and PLAID) focusing on on-farm demonstration. The SWG SCAR AKIS interacted with the two projects and provided extra comments and suggestions on these recommendations which were included in the text.
Beyond good practices for on-farm demonstration, also some elements on AKIS governance and policies to support demonstration and farmer-to-farmer learning are included.
The entire process resulted in four specific key recommendations, entitled 'Policy briefs', as listed above and further described in this deliverable. Each description contains the main challenges, lessons learnt from PLAID and AgriDemo-F2F and the recommendation itself.
5.1.1.1 Role of on-farm demonstrations
PLAID and AgriDemo-F2F Horizon 2020 MA projects cooperate to form the Farm Demo network. The main objectives are to develop an EU invent-tory of demonstration farms and to collect best practices for demonstration events and processes.
The projects have the joint aim to enhance peer-to-peer learning and focus on on-farm demonstration as a tool to boost innovation. On-farm demonstration events focus on showing and understanding innovations within a commercial working farm context or a local setting. FarmDemo zooms in on demonstration activities from the early stages of conception right through to impact assessment, leading to the identification of best practices, innovative approaches and overall recommendations to foster demonstration activities.
FARMDEMO will in the next years also cooperate with the follow-up project Horizon 2020 MA project NEFERTITI which will set up concrete demonstration activities based on the outcomes and learnings of PLAID and AgriDemo-F2F.
In general, the findings of these projects confirm that:
on-farm demonstration is an effective way to innovate/to foster inno-vation/to disseminate research results and best farming practices or systems to a wider audience;
effective demonstrations foster knowledge exchange among farmers but also between students/farmers/advisors/researchers/businesses which join the events;
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effective demonstrations are a way for scientists, students, teachers, farmers and advisers to build and share innovation and knowledge,
on-farm demonstrations have evolved from being a mainly one-directional way to intro-duce farmers to new tech-niques and learn about innovation, to ‘meeting places’
where experiences are shared in a farmer-to-farmer setting
and to support know-ledge co-creation between farmers and the
On-farm demonstrations have evolved from being a mainly one-directional way to introduce farmers to new techniques and learn about innovation, to
‘meeting places’ where experiences are shared in a farmer-to-farmer setting and to support knowledge co-creation between farmers and the other actors.
The degree of social interaction between the demonstrator and participants and the active engagement required by the farmers is thus crucial.
5.1.1.2 Objective of this report
PLAID and AgriDemo-F2F have cooperated to formulate a set of key messages, primarily intended to support R&I policy-makers and funders in the European Commission, in National Ministries and Regional authorities to increase the impact of their programmes with these advantages. These recommendations are also intended to provide value to the Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation Systems (AKIS) including educational bodies , the demonstration organisers and many more.
The key messages have been developed into four policy briefs.
Demonstration as part of the dissemination activities in the innovation support projects in EU:
education and training to enhance demonstration for farmers, facilita-tors and demo organisers;
On-farm demonstrations have evolved from being a mainly one-directional way to intro-duce farmers to new techniques
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supporting demonstration through Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation Systems (AKIS) Funding Schemes;
setting long term (EU) demonstration networks and exchange programmes.
These recommendations have been designed and improved in interaction with experts and stakeholders, and inspired by data collected throughout the project. This was a multi-step process, which was initiated at the start of both