TRAINING TO FARMERS THROUGH SERIOUS GAMES Erasmus Project

Project Title

TRAINING TO FARMERS THROUGH SERIOUS GAMES

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for vocational education and training

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2014

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Agriculture, forestry and fisheries; Overcoming skills mismatches (basic/transversal); New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

The increasing worldwide demand for agricultural products – which is attributable to population growth – has a two-fold impact, affecting on the one hand the value of the aforementioned commodities, and securing on the other the real agricultural income per labour unit according to Eurostat. Agricultural trade data confirm the specific trends as they showed a net trade of €14.3 Bn for the year 2012. Meanwhile, the farmers’ role is demanding as they have to face challenging environmental issues, such as climate change and the degradation of natural resources, as well as a stringent regulatory context which assures food quality. It is worth mentioning that economic returns from farming are not satisfactory and many farms are too small to survive as businesses.
The plethora of concerns that have risen have created the obvious need for the amelioration of farmers’ decision-making skills. The Smartfarmer project has developed an innovative e-learning platform which would efficiently satisfy farmers’ agricultural and business information needs. The specific platform has materialized the transition to a new model of learning through gamification mechanisms which will enable the farmers’ voluntary engagement for the achievement of knowledge acquisition. E-learning initiatives based on adult education theories and distance learning methods are monopolizing the interest of various parts of society (education, enterprises, etc.) because they can reciprocate to user personalized demands. The proposed platform poses e-learning under a new context enhancing its inventory with innovative tools and approaches. The Smartfarmer specialized platform allows farmers to be trained directly, easily, and responsibly on matters concerning productive processes and the commercial exploitation of agricultural products.
Project’s partnership perceives that gamification implementation combined with usable interfaces will contribute to the improvement of content conveyance and syllabus attractiveness. Project’s partners believe that our project could potentially contribute to a market reform resulting in both higher output product and quality. Furthermore, our project intends to promote agricultural development, commercialize farmer innovation with environmental friendly solutions, and improve food quality creating new opportunities in the labor market. A section of the platform is dedicated to end users (farmers). The farmers have a dedicated customized digital space in order to set up their own business initiatives, such us selling their products. Each member of the partnership network envisions a framework of sustainable business development combining lifelong learning process and a state-of-the-art educational method such as gamification applications.
The current project brings together 7 partners from 4 countries composing a team with academic and enterprising competencies.
More specifically it combines two higher education institutes with proven expertise in communication systems, agricultural entrepreneurship, and project management. One agricultural cooperation company SME with great hands-on experience in the agricultural sector with 6,000 members (farmers), an association of young farmers representing 5,000 members, an innovative SME (IT) in serous game development, and an NGO specialized in farming (NL). All partners employ experts in VET and dissemination to support the proposed project for impact maximization on a national and European level.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 206901 Eur

Project Coordinator

PANEPISTIMIO PATRON & Country: EL

Project Partners

• PANEPISTIMIO IOANNINON
• Agricultural Cooperatives Union Aeghion SA
• UNION OF YOUNG FARMERS ACHAIA
• Stichting International Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture Training
• IMAGINARY SRL
• NGO MY WORLD ASSOCIATION