Smart Farming Erasmus Project

Project Title

Smart Farming

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 higher education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Research and innovation; Agriculture, forestry and fisheries; Open and distance learning

Project Summary

Smart Farming, or Precision agriculture (PA), is a way to “apply for each crop and soil type the right treatment/input at the right place at the right time” (Gebbers and Adamchuk, 2010).

It can be defined as the use of sensing technologies in order to optimize farms and agricultural activities and management, in crops or livestock, through the wide analysis and capitalization of collected data. The need for PA application is vital for the future of the world: “The main challenge for EU agriculture will be its ability to ensure a high level of production while improving the protection of natural resources”.

Decisions on pesticides, such as the directive 2009/128/EC or the last changes in the CAP Greening resolutions show the will of the European Community to change for a more environment-friendly agriculture, while keeping high levels of production. PA can answer these two issues by providing a way to reduce the use of agricultural inputs: a competitiveness gain (less inputs for the same production level) and an environmental gain (less fuel and crop protection agents).

But Precision Agriculture’s implementation at a great scale is today still complicated because of the fear of the farmers to invest in PA techniques due to a psychological barrier (change in the cropping system) and economic barrier (doubt about the profitability) and because of the pronounced lack of young engineers or agronomists on the professional market, able to make the link between companies, authorities and farmers and who are able to apply new skills and technologies, at the crossroad of several disciplines: agronomy, robotics, data analysis, GIS, etc.

Our programme aims to answer these issues, through the following specific objectives and activities:
– by establishing a high-quality European teaching network on the subject
– by establishing perennial European partnerships between HEI, public contracting authorities and businesses for the improvement of European higher education that is more in tune with the labour market and future trends and needs.
– by training three very specific student cohorts over the program and by providing them with new skills, in a transdisciplinary field: agronomy, robotics, data analysis, GIS, etc.
– by participating in the training of many other students and professionals by making all of the courses completed during the program available via free public access (open on-line)
– by establishing research partnerships between Higher Education Institutes (HEI) and the professional agricultural organizations for the marketing of innovative and sustainable technologies, in order to best accompany the sector’s development as well as their actors (farmers, agricultural organizations, etc.)
– by developing a continuous training offer, in the national language of each partner’s country, designed for the socio-professional network and based on the content and results of the 3-year project

The partners involved in this project offers an interesting and complementary European expertise, though very specific knowledge and experience in several disciplines useful for this project: teledetection, GIS, robotics, mechatronics, plant science, etc.
Moreover, the geographic distribution of the partners, and therefore the agro climatic contexts that are covered by this European team, allows a complementary approach of the different plants cropped in Europe. The program indeed focuses more particularly on crops, which are strongly dependent on the climate and soils. The variable geographic distribution of the partners, and therefore the agro climatic contexts that are covered by this European team, allows a complementary approach of the different plants cropped in Europe. These agro climatic and geographic contexts will be tackled throughout the program, each year focusing on one kind of cropping systems (southern, northern and continental crop systems).

Last but not least, each partner is strongly involved at regional, national or international levels in professional organizations and networks of companies, farmers and other end-users in the sector. The project is therefore also the opportunity for the team to bring all together these professional partners to get them involved in this project for them to benefit from the results of this project and activities and to assure the proper promotion and transfer of these new technologies to the end-users.

Project Website

http://erasmusplus-smart-farming.eu/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 207568 Eur

Project Coordinator

YNCREA HAUTS DE FRANCE & Country: FR

Project Partners

• NORGES MILJO-OG BIOVITENSKAPLIGE UNIVERSITET
• UNIVERSITE DE LIEGE
• UNIVERSIDADE DE TRAS-OS-MONTES E ALTO DOURO
• AMERICAN FARM SCHOOL POST SECONDARY EDUCATIONAL AND TRAINING ASSOCIATION
• SVERIGES LANTBRUKSUNIVERSITET
• HELSINGIN YLIOPISTO