Farm Events to demonstrate Climate Smart Farming in 28 countries
An EU funded project called Climate Smart Demo is forming a unique network of Pilot Demo Farmers covering 28 countries. It aims to accelerate the adoption of Climate Smart Farming practices and solutions by farmers.
The project adopts a Multi-Actor approach by connecting the 1,500 Pilot Demo Farmers and their Climate Farm Advisors at European and National levels to increase knowledge exchange.
The Climate Smart Farming practices will be demonstrated to the wider farming community across six annual demo-campaigns, involving 4,500 demo-events across the 28 countries in that time. The events are interactive and based on peer to peer learning.
In Ireland the project is led by Teagasc, with the Signpost Demonstration farmers participating in the Climate Smart Demo Project.
One such demo farm event took place this week on the farm of Tom Tierney, Ballinafagh Farm, Prosperous, County Kildare. Tom Tierney is a tillage farmer in the Teagasc Signpost programme, and uses a no-till establishment system in conjunction with cover crops to improve soil health. He is a participant in GLAS and in the Kildare Pollinator project to try to reduce his impact on the environment and improve biodiversity. The farm participates in GLAS using the options; cover cropping, minimum tillage and wild bird cover. His main enterprises are winter and spring cereals, winter oilseed rape, spring beans, wild bird cover and forestry.
Demonstration farms and on-farm demonstration events have a long history and play an important part in advisory efforts to improve agricultural practices. It is widely recognised that farmers learn from other farmers. The demonstration farmers in the Climate Farm Demo project perform two key roles: (1) they incorporate new or existing climate smart farming practices into their farming systems (with the support of trained advisors); and (2) they demonstrate the outcomes to other farmers.
Through on-farm demonstrations, other farmers can obtain practical, tangible experiences of farming methods and technologies that they can subsequently use to improve their own farming practices. The demonstration farmers play a key role through the provision of their practical insights concerning the new practice or technology. The demonstration farmers in the project have agreed to host other farmers, rural professionals, students and consumers on their farms for a farm demonstration event.
“Demonstrating climate solutions on commercial farms across Europe will accelerate the adoption of these solutions by European farmers” according to Tom O’Dwyer, Teagasc and the person responsible for co-ordinating the annual campaign of farm demonstration events. “Farm demonstrations are a recognised means of enabling farmers to acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to adopt new practices and to modify their farming practices in the face of both challenges and opportunities.”
The on-farm demonstration events should be of interest to farmers and other rural professionals with an interest in finding out more about the practical steps being taken by EU farmers to reduce their GHG emissions.
Further details of planned events for each country are available on the project website