FLINT

FLINT is an EU FP7 project that will provide a data-infrastructure needed by the agro-food sector and policy makers to provide up to date information on farm level indicators on sustainability and other relevant new issues. Better decision making will be facilitated by taking into account the sustainability performance of farms on a wide range of relevant topics, such as:

1. market stabilization;
2. income support;
3. environmental sustainability;
4. climate change adaptation and mitigation;
5. innovation; and
6. resource efficiency.

Teagasc is leading the development of farm-scale indicators for the above themes, and these will include indicators of farmland habitats and greening measures.

The approach will explicitly consider the heterogeneity of the farming sector in the EU and its member states. Together with the farming and agro-food sector, the feasibility of these indicators will be determined. FLINT will establish a pilot network of at least 1000 farms (representative of farm diversity at EU level, including the different administrative environments in the different MS) that is well suited for the gathering of these data.

The lessons learned and recommendations from the empirical research conducted in 9 purposefully chosen MS will be used for estimating and discussing effects in all 28 MS. This will be very useful if the European Commission should decide to upgrade the pilot network to an operational EU-wide system.

See the FLINT project website at http://www.flint-fp7.eu

For further information, contact Dr John Finn john.finn(at)teagasc.ie