Jump-starting Agri future Days with ICT education

We all know that ICT in Agriculture is not a new thing and it has the potential to build up a better, smarter and more sustainable food production. We also know there's a lot more that can, and should be done, for improving global knowledge level about it. But for now, i will concentrate on the youth needs here.

From June 22nd-24th i attended a great event in Villach, Austria that potentially opened many new fantastic pages for YPARD. The 3rd Annual Edition of AgriFuture Days organized by the Club of Ossiach , gave me the opportunity to discuss more about youth in agriculture, ICT, education and the crucial combination of all three.Thanks to Kristina Kuznetsova, our YPARD Ukraine rep and board member of Club of Ossiach, I had the privilege and honor to participate at the conference as YPARD representative.

This year's theme at AgriFuture Days was “Smart rural area for smart cities“. Many different speakers, both from private and public sector, actively participated and presented their projects, initiatives and ideas of how ICT can contribute to the future and benefits for the entire agro-food chain. 

From YPARD Europe point of view, I found it interesting and useful to learn more about EU Project Farm-oriented open data in Europe(FOODIE), news and controls in EU CAP, and also about Information management for precision dairy farming.

Those presentations got my attention both from YPARD rep and a young farmer aspect, which also helped me to put more “real life“ in my own presentation the following day. All these terrific speeches, and real projects behind them, need to be brought closer to the field. So how should we bring more information and knowledge about ICT to youth? Oh right, YPARD is already doing that great job. Keep reading.

The second day was reserved for three workshops sessions divided by subjects: 

1) Technology integration

2) Stakeholder´s cooperation – public and private partnerships

3) Education and local experience

Don't be “smart“ - learning is a must

My presentation, Agriculture Youth and Importance of ICT Education, was part of the third session. First, i presented YPARD in general, and then it all just started to roll. When other participants heard and saw more about YPARD's ongoing mentorship projects, webinar series, blogs, vlogs, an overall knowledge base and enthusiasm in our "small“, 12 500 members family, it became all clear. We are THE partner, being a leading youth in agriculture platform with 10 years of experience. We have tools, audience and will to work together on building up some brighter future for our dearest agriculture. And I'm not going to be humble about this since that's what others participants told me. We can do a lot, and I was so proud to be a YPARDian there.

In this session all of us agreed that apart from formal education, there's big need for informal education in general, and especially in ICT, requires constant updating, or if you like, lifelong learning.Many of participants wish YPARD will have the main role in this part for youth.

Now next steps after this conference are clear: new partnerships, potentially new country reps, lots of brainstorming, writing everything down and work for future.I believe some great new projects are smiling at us, and most definitely YPARD Europe is going to get even stronger.

And as Dr. Ajit Maru, Senior Officer at GFAR said in his opening speech: "Learning is a must, we all know that, but we have to speed up education of new generations“. 

Let's take that train together.