Sharing best practices to pave the way for
Climate-Smart Agriculture
The urgency of climate change makes Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) more essential than ever, as it integrates practices ranging from soil conservation techniques to water-efficient irrigation and climate-resilient crops, contributing to food security and protecting livelihoods.
The recent online meeting of the EVECSA project provided a platform to exchange insights on these innovative approaches, highlighting real-world solutions that make agriculture more resilient.
Key principles for sustainable farming
As part of the three-day meeting, experts delivered a full day of public seminars for a deep dive into some of the techniques used by the EVECSA partners:
- Tine Svane (Bygholm Agricultural College, Denmark) presented the “Viable Growth Model,” a sustainable approach to project and business development that balances profit, social wellbeing, and environmental respect in line with the objectives of Climate-Smart Agriculture.
- Dr. inż. Huber Prask, Mgr inż. Mateusz Czinar, and Mgr inż. Eryk Frontczak (Wroclaw University of Environmental and Life Sciences) explored biogas production in agricultural plants, showing how biogas can meet agricultural energy needs and how digestate can replace chemical fertilisers.
- Markus Pallesen Schaumburg-Müller (Kalø Organic Agricultural College, Denmark) presented methods of regenerative organic farming, highlighting practices that improve soil health, biodiversity, and agricultural resilience.
- Sari Peltonen (ProAgria, Finland) shared practices to improve crop performance, mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, and promote carbon sequestration, with benefits for soil organic matter, productivity, and agricultural resilience.
Participants also heard from Ester Casas Griera, an agricultural engineer specialist of organic seeds, about the importance of recovering and promoting local heirloom seed varieties. Drawing on successful examples like Les Refardes, in Catalonia, she examined their role in crop diversification, increasing biodiversity and resilience.
Finally, Sijtske Ouderkerken (Hotspot Groene Leefbare Stad, the Netherlands) introduced the concept of Living Labs, which are experimental environments where research organisations, private companies, and education actors work together to develop and test new ideas and solutions in the real world. Delving into their green rooftop projects in Utrecht and Denmark, she explored the potential to transfer these experiences to the EVECSA project.
These presentations sparked discussions among participants and offered concrete ideas for integrating innovative practices into the training programmes currently being developed by the EVECSA partners.
Developing educational programmes
Working together to define clear pathways, the partners particularly focused on designing new training programmes that address the needs of the agricultural sector.
During the meeting, they also presented the Gameplans for each of the six Centres of Vocational Excellence (CoVEs). As thorough analyses of the current state of the CoVEs, these enabled the identification of key objectives, involved stakeholders, challenges, and sustainability strategies.
The meeting and the public seminars strengthened the ties between the CoVEs and paved the way for new collaborations. In the coming months, the consortium will focus on co-designing innovative training pathways, emphasising a practical and multidisciplinary approach to training the agricultural professionals of tomorrow.
