The NEFERTITI project, aimed at building a European network of demonstration farms has started in January with the participation of CEMA, one of the 32 partners in this project of 7 million €.
The kick-off meeting was kindly hosted by the University of Almeria on the 16th & 17th of January 2018.
NEFERTITI is a unique 7 M€ Network that aims at building a multi-actor network of agricultural practitioners, promoting the role of demonstration in farms all around Europe. As the coordinator, Adrien Guichaoua (ACTA Head of EU & Regional affairs), stated during the meeting: “NEFERTITI is not a classical Research project: it is different. It’s a project for farmers, advisors and actors working in the field. We will organize farm demonstration at every meeting”.
Among the participants, coordinated by ACTA, the head of Network of the French Agricultural Technical Institutes, 32 partners coming from 17 European countries and representing farmers, advisors and actors working in the field, including: INRA Transfert, IFOAM-EU, The James Hutton Institute, Tuscany Region, TEAGASC – the Irish Agriculture and Food Development Authority, Stichting Wageningen Research, the Instituto Navarro de Tecnologias e Infraestructuras Agroalimentarias, the Flanders research institute for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (EVILVO), and three Institutes from the ACTA network (ARVALIS, IDELE and IFV).
CEMA will play a central role since the beginning of the project acting as liaison with the agricultural machinery industry representatives. The engagement and insights of the industry will be extremely valuable to:
- Select and fine-tuning best practices to improve peer-to-peer learning, feeding Nefertiti reflection on best practices with the experience on demonstrations carried out by the manufacturers.
- Connecting and networking demo-farmers with innovative manufacturers and actors from the agriculture machinery industries.
- Participating to the establishment of policy recommendations on demo-best practices.
- Disseminating and spreading the project results and activities of interest for CEMA members, thus improving the uptake of project results and innovative practices.
Last but not least, CEMA aims at contributing to NEFERTITI by involving its network for showing and sharing which demonstration activities and practices are the most effective to showcase adapted technologies to farmers’ that can meet their needs and expectations.
