GSS EU Science Funding Gateway

Advisors are in a good position to provide hands-on training to organic farmers, to inspire new and incoming farmers or farms at the cross-roads of intergenerational renewal, to connect with education and ensure broad communication, to support peer-to-peer consulting, and to develop on-farm demonstrations.

Proposals should:

• Connect farm advisors across the EU , with a view to sharing experiences on how to best tackle the main issues of the sector.
• Undertake knowledge, best practice and innovation exchange activities that support Member States in making the best use of the possibilities offered by the new CAP to support their national organic sector.
• Fill gaps on emerging advisory topics beyond the classical sectorial advice, in particular in view of the new obligation for Member States to integrate advisors within their AKIS.
• Serve as a platform to bring stakeholders together to discuss challenges and solutions to practical organic farming problems, such as bottlenecks, lock-ins, power imbalances, normative aspects, lack of consumer buy-in or trust, inequalities between Member States, etc.
• Provide overall support related to knowledge creation, organisation and sharing. This could include peer-to-peer counselling, master classes, (digital) advice modules, communication and education materials, etc.
• Promote the sharing of effective and novel approaches that are sustainable in terms of economic, environmental and social aspects.
• Create added value by ensuring stronger links between research, education, advisors and farming practice and encouraging the wider use of available knowledge across the EU.
• Spread ready-to-use innovative solutions to practitioners and ensuring communication to the scientific community of research needs from practice.
• Taking strong account of cost-benefit elements, collect and document good examples of connecting farmers, intermediates and consumers in Member States to be able to take into account financial aspects and local conditions.
• Promote the integration of the advisors of the EU advisory network on organic farming into their Member State’s AKIS.
• Explore if the activities of the EU advisory network on organic farming can be up scaled at the level of a number of Member States under a cooperative format.
• Organise training activities for new advisors to be integrated in the network during the course of the project.