CAP Network Ireland is currently undertaking a key initiative to gather and share innovative knowledge from successful Irish European Innovation Partnership for Agricultural Productivity and Sustainability (EIP-AGRI) projects.
EIP-AGRI is a European Union initiative that aims to connect cutting-edge research with the practical needs of farmers by co-creating solutions to real-world challenges through a bottom-up approach.
This article highlights the progress of the Network’s EIP-AGRI thematic pilot, one of the key focus areas of which is gathering innovative knowledge derived from EIP-AGRI projects on farm health, safety, and wellbeing
Selecting the most promising projects
To begin its work, the CAP Network Ireland Innovation Hub team focused on the eight projects funded under EIP-AGRI Call 4 Stream A from 2020, on the topic of Farm Health, Safety and Wellbeing. Using a robust, step-wise Knowledge Transfer (KT) methodology, which you can read more about in this article, the Network first reviewed the final reports from all eight projects. Based on this initial analysis, four projects were selected for a more in-depth knowledge collection process. These were:
- SAFE Farm EIP
- Farmers 4 Safety EIP
- FORUM Connemara Farm Health and Safety EIP
- Embrace FARM Encircle Programme EIP
Analysing knowledge for maximum impact
The Hub then conducted one-to-one, in-depth interviews with each of the Operational Group Coordinators of the four projects to learn more about the novel knowledge generated by each project. This resulted in thirteen distinct knowledge outputs, or KOs, being collected.
To evaluate the practical value of these findings, all thirteen outputs were then analysed in collaboration with farm safety industry experts. These experts were crucial in assessing how applicable the knowledge or innovation was for Irish agricultural stakeholders and identifying the most appropriate end-users, such as farmers or advisors, who could adopt and implement the innovations. Through this rigorous process, the experts identified four of the thirteen outputs as having high potential for impact. It was determined that if these four innovations are successfully adopted, they could significantly improve farm health, safety, and wellbeing on a national scale.
These high potential knowledge outputs are:
Call 4 Stream A – Farm Health, Safety and Wellbeing
- Framework for a coordinated point of contact for individuals/families to access support services after trauma on farms (Embrace Encircle EIP).
- Mental Healthline Support Service tailored to farmers to combat mental stress and isolation among the farming community (SAFE Farm EIP).
- A peer-to-peer mentoring framework to engage farmers in farm safety, health, and wellbeing (Farmers 4 Safety EIP).
- Combatting social isolation, enhancing wellbeing and reducing safety hazards among farming communities through a collaborative Buddy-System (Farmers 4 Safety EIP).
Ensuring widespread adoption
CAP Network Ireland is now in the final stage of its methodology: knowledge transfer. The team is actively developing structured transfer plans for each of the four high-potential outputs. These plans feature explicit activities designed to deliver the knowledge to targeted stakeholders across the agricultural sector. For instance, a specific activity might involve organising a workshop with farm advisors. The goal of such a workshop would be to make advisors aware of the high potential knowledge identified from the projects so that they can then pass it on to their farming clients, thereby increasing the chances of widespread adoption.
If you would like to discuss any of the four high-potential farm health, safety, and wellbeing knowledge outputs outlined in this article and learn more about how the CAP Network Ireland team effectively transfers agricultural knowledge, please contact Leo on leo@erinn.eu.
