The Centres of Vocational Excellence in Smart Farming and Sustainable Food Systems project aims to respond to the existing and emerging needs of an “agriculture of the future”. The project will work on contributing the necessary soft and technical skills needed for a transformed agriculture sector, covering the priority areas of digitalisation, decarbonisation and sustainability. The Centres of Vocational Excellence will bring together European leading actors from Vocational Education and Training, academia, research, and business across regions with tradition in the agri-food sector.
Overview
AGRIFOOD4FUTURE is a world-class ERASMUS+ initiative aimed at building VET skills and educational programs addressing the needs of the “agriculture of the future”. By bringing together European leading actors from VET-academia-research-business across regions with tradition in the agri-food (yet lagging in new practices adoption), we aim at building centers of vocational excellence able to respond to existing and emerging needs in the sector, while targeting the key priorities of the sector: digitalization, decarbonization and sustainability.
Scientists, policymakers, and open visioned agrifood players have noted the transformative potential of new and emerging agriculture practices, such as climate-smart agriculture, smart farming, precision agriculture, regenerative and organic practices, NEXUS based approach to agri-food, etc., but found difficulties to implement it at large scales. Barriers such as the insufficient level of awareness, soft and technical skills, and limited entrepreneurial mindset of, usually, more conservative farming professionals have been inhibitors of change.
