Current Skills of Students and Their Expected Future Training Needs on Precision Agriculture: Evidence from Euro-Mediterranean Higher Education Institutes (original) (raw)

97. Teaching precision farming and entrepreneurship for European students: Sparkle online course

Precision agriculture ’21, 2021

Within the framework of the European project named "SPARKLE" an online course was created after studying educational needs on precision agriculture (PA), state of the art of technologies and a prospective study of the commercial sector. Five educational and research institutions, high-tech farms and enterprises specialized in technology transfer created the syllabus of the course and the platform contents. The course was designed to provide 30 h of student dedication, via online presentations, documents and videos for each topic. A free pilot course started in April 2020 and 385 students from Italy, Portugal, Greece & Spain enrolled. To trace performance and acquisition of competences, questionnaires were completed by students for each topic and a final overall test. Students' opinions about the course were also registered using anonymous polls, and results evaluated, to be able to enhance the Sparkle course for subsequent editions. Students also took part in a business model competition, to solve real challenges proposed by farms, related to the use of these technologies.

Vocational education in the agri-food complex in the European Union

In this contribution the field of agricultural education in the European Union is described. Agricultural education is an old part of vocational education. Some may think this field is dusty and dull, but it is not. Agricultural education, or as some prefer to call it nowadays, green education, is red hot. Why this is the case will be immediately clear. The world population currently is 6 billion people, and it is estimated that in the year 2020 there will be 8 billion people. This creates an enormous pressure on secure food production, food safety, and the environment. Not only population growth puts this pressure on human and natural resources, the fight against poverty and under- and mal-nutrition does the same. Agricultural education has to educate the future generation of leaders, researchers, professionals, technicians and last but not least, innovative farmers, who collectively can meet the challenges of global food security.

Educator Survey: Do Institutions Provide the Precision Agriculture Education Needed by Agribusiness?

2018

The objective of this paper is to identify educational areas in need of strengthening to better prepare graduates for employment in precision agriculture occupations. A survey of post-secondary educators was conducted to examine college curriculum preparing students for industry occupational categories. Differences were observed between retail industry and educator expectations of student preparation for industry occupation categories. An expansion of communication channels between industry and educational institutions is needed to improve student outcomes to meet industry needs.

Farmers education enables precision farming of dairy operations

2013

Precision dairy farming is the application of information technologies to dairy cattle farm management and allows increase both the performances and the profit of the farm production processes pursuing objectives of low--input, high--efficiency and sustainability. Recent studies clearly showed that the critical point of adoption rate of precision farming technology in dairy farms is represented by farmer education level. This paper describes the role of farmer education and its constraints on driving the efficacy of precision farming techniques adopted by a certain dairy farm. The paper also describes a possible application to a specific dairy cattle production area of Italy. The conceptual map consisted of 6 causal--loop named: Precision farming; Reports; Break even; Efficiency target; Farmer background; Education demand. The proposed conceptual model showed as farmer education enables and stimulates the efficacy of precision farming technologies. Further developments must include the stock and flow diagram of the reviewed relationships and the model calibration with existing information on dairy practices and required local information on farmer capabilities.

Precision Farming: Barriers of Variable Rate Technology Adoption in Italy

Land

Research dealing with the adoption of various precision agriculture technologies has shown that guidance and recording tools are more widespread than reactive ones (such as variable rate technology), with much lower utilization rates in European case studies. This study aims to analyze the propensity to innovate variable rate technologies among young Italian farmers. A cluster analysis was carried out revealing four groups. The first two groups represent non-adopters who think technological innovation is very complex from a technical point of view, as well as not very accessible as capital-intensive technology. The third and fourth groups represent adopters. The third reports an early level of adoption, still considering the cost of access a major barrier to technology implementation. The fourth, on the other hand, shows a more intensive level and considers the lack of institutional support a major limitation. The cluster with the most intensive adoption is characterized by the youn...

Possibilities and concerns of implementing precision agriculture technologies on small farms in Slovenia

International Journal of Agricultural and Biological Engineering

Precision agriculture (PA) through the use and utilization of innovative technologies is a concept in agricultural management that enables long-term efficiency gains, control of unforeseen changes, and a reduction of negative impacts on the environment. However, there are even more reasons and benefits to using precision agriculture technologies (PATs) on farms, but the actual use on small farms is often questionable. The main objective of this research was to evaluate and analyze the current state of PA and its potential on a set of small farms. In addition, a comparison was made between small farms located in less favored areas (LFAs) and more favored areas (MFAs) to find if specific characteristics of the surrounding environment affect the (non-) implementation of these technologies by farm owners, with respect to the given regional possibilities. The result shows that 57.5% of respondents on these farms have never implemented PATs before and 20% are beginners in their respective fields. It was found that there were no statistically significant differences in the integration between fewer LFAs and MFAs technologies and their use in this study. The majority of respondents believe that the main changes need to occur on the level of politics. The results show that the level of cost or initial investment is the main reason and the main obstacle in the implementation of PATs on the surveyed farms.

Investigando el impacto de los cursos de prácticas y de los principios de emprendimiento en la intención emprendedora de los estudiantes de agricultura

2020

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of internship courses and entrepreneurship fundamentals on the entrepreneurial intention of students of applied science educational centers in western Iran. This research is in terms of degree of control and degree of control, field and in terms of method of obtaining facts and data is survey type and in terms of data collection, is causal-correlational. The statistical population of this study was 388 students of agricultural and undergraduate courses in Applied Science Education Centers in four western provinces of Iran (Ilam, Kermanshah, Lorestan and Kurdistan). Since the list of students who have completed internship and entrepreneurship courses is available, so the sample was selected as a whole sample and finally 250 questionnaires were returned. The data collection tool was a researcher-made questionnaire whose content validity was confirmed by a panel of experts and its reliability was confirmed by Cronbach's alpha....

Analysis of the Young Agricultural Entrepreneurs Learning Needs (Future Skills Needs) 1 PUBLICATION 0 CITATIONS SEE PROFILE 11 PUBLICATIONS 6 CITATIONS SEE PROFILE Analysis of the Young Agricultural Entrepreneurs Learning Needs (Future Skills Needs

The empirical research focus has been the identification of the most relevant learning needs of future entrepreneurs in agriculture taking into account the opinion of selected stakeholders (experts in the agricultural sector and in the vocational training sector) and the perceptions and representations of young farmers regarding: a) the central development areas for European agricultural enterprises; b) knowledge, understanding, competences and skills required to effectively set up and manage an agricultural enterprise within CAP (Common Agricultural Policy) scenarios. In order to do this we have set up a qualitative research framework identifying two selected groups of people-stakeholders and young farmers-considered to be privileged witnesses to involve in the research, in order to collect significant data regarding the research focus. Due the aims of the research and the characteristics of the samples, we have chosen to use qualitative research methodologies, procedures and tools such as semi-structured one-to one interviews with open questions in order to collect the significant data. The answers to each item have been analyzed and compared in order to define a general framework of learning needs and objectives for EU young entrepreneur, together with a more specific profile of learning needs and objectives for each country, identifying the similarities and the differences in the profiles according to the different contextual and territorial configurations as well as to the expectations, motivations, sensitiveness characterizing the farmers in the different countries. These data are collected to be analyzed in depth (through a comparative analysis process) focusing on the difficulties that average EU farmers in each country encounter in the attempt to cope with the new CAP. The sample of stakeholders has been selected in order to collect multiple points of view on the agricultural sector on the basis of different positions and perspectives so to represent the complexity of the CAP scenario.