AGRITECH EU (Digital agriculture for sustainable development) is a Digital Europe Project coordinated by the University of Pisa. It aims to devise learning modules aimed at developing high-level skills in the area of digitalization for sustainable agriculture, with an emphasis on the principles of agroecology and responsible innovation.
The project brings together 13 organizations from 6 European countries including 7 higher education institutions, 5 businesses (SMEs and large companies) and a research and excellence centre. This consortium met on April 18th in Pisa for one and a half days to kick off the project.
To achieve its goal, AGRITECH EU wants to build a European catalogue of blended learning activities, focusing on innovative experience-based teaching and on the use of online tools. The project will also involve student and lecturer mobility as well as the award of joint degrees. Among others, the topics of precision agriculture, the use of drones for monitoring purposes, farm data management, the application of artificial intelligence, the automation of agricultural operations, and the digitalization of supply chain traceability will be addressed. Socio-economic (including risks and unintended consequences) and legal implications will also be dealt with for each of these themes. The courses will be based on interdisciplinary programmes that combine technological, agronomic, and socio-economic skills.
During the Kick-off meeting, organisation delegates held several plenary sessions at the Department of Agricultural, Food and Agro-Environmental Sciences of the University of Pisa. These gatherings allowed the consortium to establish the best working methods for the upcoming 4 years in which AGRITECH EU will be running.
On the first day, the Project Officer at the European Commission introduced the program rules and each country presented the update on the state-of-the-work at a national level. The administrative tasks of the project were also reviewed.
The second and final day mainly covered the Catalogue architecture and the contributions of each partner to its development. A final session was dedicated to the exchange of experiences on business involvement, training methodologies and other topics.
What’s next?
AGRITECH EU will finalise the architecture of the European Catalogue and begin the design and preparation of the learning activities to be delivered within the project.
