Climate Farm Demo – A European-wide network of pilot farmers implementing and demonstrating climate-smart solutions for a carbon-neutral Europe

Project aim: Main aim of the Climate Farm Demo project is to accelerate uptake of Climate Smart Solutions for mitigation of negative impact from agriculture towards environment, as European agriculture would become carbon neutral by the 2050.

About the project: Climate Farm Demo is a unique pan-European network of Pilot Demo Farmers (PDFs) covering 28 countries and all pedo-climatic areas. Its overall aim it to accelerate the adoption of Climate Smart Farming (CSF) practices and solutions by farmers and all actors of the Climate Smart Agriculture Knowledge & Innovation Systems (AKIS) with a view of adapting agricultural production systems to climate change and of achieving a carbon neutral agricultural sector by 2050, thereby meeting the targets of the EU Climate strategy. To reach this objective, the project adopts a Multi-Actor approach by connecting 1500 Pilot Demo Farmers and their Climate Farm Advisors (CFAs) at European and national levels to increase knowledge exchange & cross-fertilisation in their respective AKIS. The CFA’s will support the PDF’s in implementing Adaptation and Mitigation Measures suggested by contextualised guidelines and assess & monitor their environmental performance thanks to harmonized methodologies & tools. Technical and social innovations covering a broad range of thematic areas will be demonstrated to the wider farming community across six annual demo-campaigns (4500 demo-events) supporting interactive and peer to peer learning. New and innovative CSF solutions will be co-created in 10 Living Labs spread across Europe and lessons learned from multi-actor innovation will be shared and scaled. A set of public and private rewarding mechanisms will be identified, proposed and demonstrated to the AKIS actors, thus incentivising the uptake of CSF solutions while ensuring sustainable business models. Strategic and operational cooperation is organised with projects, flagship initiatives and policy-makers at European and national levels in order to share knowledge, organize coordinated actions, and produce policy briefs. BioSense Institute significantly contribute to this project by building digital infrastructure, monitoring of project activities, supports in organizing of farm demo events, and by coordinating communication and dissemination activities regarding project results and outcomes at European level.

BioSense role on the project: There are several roles of BioSense involvement in this project. First role is the development and maintenance of the Pilot Demo Farm network and the support to project management through the coordination of the work of National Coordinators in 26 countries through the role of National Management Unit. Second role is managing, co-ordination and monitoring the delivery of up to 4,500 farm demo events. Third role is the implementation of a detailed Dissemination, Communication and Exploitation Strategy to accelerate the uptake of climate change adaptation and mitigation measures and the development of project website which acts as a knowledge reservoir for the plethora of project results and outputs. Finally, BioSense is leading the task for Data Management and acts as the Data Management manager.