CAP Network Ireland attended the first Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation Systems (AKIS) Coordination group meeting at the end of December 2023 at the Department of Agriculture, Food & The Marine’s Backweston Campus in Celbridge, Co. Kildare.
This meeting follows through on the commitment in the CAP Strategic Plan to set up this coordination group. Organised by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, the meeting brought together 60 stakeholders from different industries within the agricultural space, including DAFM, researchers, advisors, media and more.
The aim of the meeting was to give an overview of the AKIS space, looking at some of the actors and goals of AKIS and this coordination group. The first part of the meeting involved presentations by key stakeholders:
– AKIS Overview (Patrick Barrett)
– Teagasc & Modern AKIS (Mark Gibson)
– ACA (Breian Carroll)
– National CAP Network (David Murphy)
– AKIS Monitoring & Evaluation (Stephanie Vella, EU CAP Network)
– AKIS Coordination Group Terms of Reference (Cormac McGann)
This was followed by an interactive workshop where attendees were divided into groups and eagerly discussed the various needs, challenges and goals of the AKIS coordination group in terms of making real change.
The event was a great opportunity for members of the group to meet in person and make new connections with people from different backgrounds. The variety of ideas and opinions really highlighted the diversity of the different members of the coordination group and this can only aid the work of the group going forward.
For more information about AKIS, you can read about it on the gov.ie website here.
