Project description
Innovating and enriching farmer clusters across cropping systems in Europe
Farmer clusters are designed to start life at a bottom-up farmer level, under the guidance of a lead farmer. Although the work is often supplemented by existing agri-environment schemes, several clusters have been set up with no funding. The EU-funded FRAMEwork project is designed to enrich and innovate existing farmer clusters by liaising with local and national stakeholder groups, helping to set up new, multi-actor farmer clusters in different cropping systems in Europe, based on existing collaborations. The project aims to be innovative in the way in which it will implement EU ethics, data protection and gender regulations.
Objective
FRAMEwork is constructed based on the Farmer Cluster approach successfully implemented in the UK. FRAMEWORK will enrich and innovate existing Farmer Clusters by liaising with local and (inter)national stakeholder groups, and set up new, multi-actor, Farmer Clusters in different cropping systems in Europe, based on existing collaborations. The Farmer Clusters will be united in a European-wide self-sustaining network and linked with the Citizen Observatory and Information Hub that will facilitate farmer and citizen-based collection and sharing of harmonised, high-quality information on biodiversity and farming, and develop engaging online and offline activities to amplify awareness and understanding of biodiversity and Biodiversity Sensitive Farming across different stakeholders in Europe. The scientific contribution to these citizen-based activities will deliver the following outcomes: 1) Advanced ecological understanding of the drivers of biodiversity change in agricultural landscapes; 2) a selection of best-practice biodiversity-sensitive management by farmers based on their local requirement; 3) validated methods for biodiversity targeting, monitoring and evaluation and 4) private and public incentives to foster biodiversity-sensitive farming as a public good. Furthermore, FRAMEwork will assess the effectiveness of the Farmer Cluster approach to develop and implement place and system-specific biodiversity-sensitive farming practices and evaluate the economic and environmental performance, delivering a permanent on-line evaluation tool on the Citizen Observatory and Information Hub. The TRL of the Decision Support Tools ranges from 3-5, where improvements are foreseen for the TRL5 Decision Support Tool, while the ones at TRL3 will be brought to TRL4-5 through testing and improvements in the Farmers Clusters. FRAMEwork will be innovative in the way in which it will implement EU ethics, data protection and gender regulations.
Fields of science
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Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
RIA - Research and Innovation actionCoordinator
DD2 5DA Dundee
United Kingdom
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Participants (17)
SP6 1EF Fordingbridge
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The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.
84911 Avignon
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1180 Wien
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51014 Tartu
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8952 Irdning-Donnersbachtal
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13001 Ciudad Real
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56127 Pisa
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AL10 9AB Hatfield
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08193 Bellaterra
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75007 Paris
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2361 Laxenburg
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1012WX Amsterdam
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4362 Esch Sur Alzette
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49074 Osnabrueck
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CA1 1BJ Carlisle
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165 00 Praha
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1159 Kobenhavn
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The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.