The EIP-AGRI Service Point have published a report on their ‘CAP Strategic Plans: the key role of Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation Systems (AKIS) in Member States’ seminar, which was held from the 16th to 18th of September 2020.
This event focused on supporting Member States in the preparation of their AKIS strategies as part of the CAP Strategic Plans and promoting efficient agricultural knowledge flows within the country and region as well as across the whole EU. The AKIS concept links a diversity of actors, such as farmers, agricultural educators, researchers, farm advisors and other rural economy extension personnel, to promote mutual learning and generate, share and utilise research, agriculture and rural economy related technology, knowledge and information.
Policy awareness on the importance of strengthening AKIS has increased over the last decade, as it attempts to better connect science and practice and boost knowledge exchange and innovation to help European farmers and rural communities meet the challenges of today and tomorrow.
An overview of a presentation given by Dr Shane Conway, Researcher at NUI Galway working on the National Rural Network project, was given at this event. This presentation covered how lessons learned from Ireland’s existing EIP-AGRI Operational Groups are helping to build future Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) interventions in an Irish context and is featured within this publication (p. 33-34). Dr Conway highlighted the importance of Ireland’s locally-led, farmer-centred, results-based approach towards EIP-AGRI in helping to bring about an innovative culture at farm level.
The final report of this EIP-AGRI Seminar, containing all information on background, presentations and interactive discussions, can be found here.
