New EU-wide, centralised knowledge platform for farming and forestry
The EU FarmBook is a new online platform, which will bring together the practical farming and forestry knowledge produced by EU multi-actor projects funded under Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe in one central place.
EU FarmBook – why this new platform and what it is about
The two sister projects EURAKNOS and EUREKA, both funded under the EU’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, developed an online, open-source, European knowledge reservoir called “EUFarmBook”. This new platform will make practice-oriented knowledge about farming and forestry from EU research and innovation projects more easily accessible, searchable, multilingual, interactive, and attractive for end users in one central place. IFOAM Organics Europe and ICROFS were part of the multi-actor consortia of the two sister projects, making sure that the EUFarmBook suits the needs of the organic actors and building their capacity, for example through cross-exchange visits, networking, communication and dissemination.
The feasibility of an EU-wide digital knowledge reservoir was first explored by the EURAKNOS project, based on the outputs of Horizon 2020 Thematic Networks. This assessment and ‘proof of concept’ was extended to other multi-actor Horizon 2020 projects by the subsequent EUREKA project, which developed a prototype and pilot of the future EUFarmBook. FAIR data management ensures that data will be findable (with unique identifiers and ‘metadata’ describing the data or knowledge objects, i.e., keywords to find resources), accessible (open and free to use), interoperable (through a common programming language), and reusable (i.e., all data is clearly described using data standards).
Outlook: Next phase
With Horizon Europe, there will be many more multi-actor projects. The recently approved 7-year follow-up project “EU FarmBook”, to be funded under the EU’s current research and innovation programme Horizon Europe, will build upon EURAKNOS and EUREKA to support knowledge exchange between all EU and national Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation Systems (AKIS) actors by further developing, expanding, exploiting, and maintaining an easily accessible and user-friendly EU-wide digital platform for practitioners in agriculture, forestry, and other rural sectors. IFOAM Organics Europe will again bring in its network into this new project and will help to make the material on the platform ready for organic practitioners, for instance developing and promoting education and training material for organic farmers and translating knowledge into user-friendly formats.
What is the link to Organic Farm Knowledge and Organic Eprints?
Similarly, IFOAM Organics Europe and ICROFS were bringing in the Organic Farm Knowledge platform as already existing knowledge reservoirs for practical farming knowledge. The EUFarmBook’s content will cover all types of farming whereas the existing platforms are dedicated to organic farming knowledge only. It will be possible to filter search results for “organic”.
Both the EURAKNOS Explorer’s Guide to Thematic Networks and Deliverable 4.1, among other project outputs, showcase Organic Farm Knowledge (established by the two Thematic Networks OK-Net Arable and OK-Net EcoFeed) and Organic Eprints as best practice examples that provide, among others, easy access to the platform and content and diverse types of outputs, while targeting farmers and other practitioners such as advisors as the main end users.
With currently 574 tools available under six themes, many committed key partners from the organic sector and high interest from potential future partners and knowledge suppliers, Organic Farm Knowledge remains unique as knowledge reservoir platform specialised on organic production. Similarly, steps are being taken to ensure the future of Organic Eprints, international open-access archive related to research in organic food and farming.
Get involved!
You are invited to join the multi-actor community! For more information and registration please consult the EUREKA website.
Check out the pilot at eufarmbook.eu and share your feedback! (
maria.gernert@organicseurope.bio).The EURAKNOS Explorer’s Guide is now also available in 14 languages on the European Commission Horizon Results Portal: https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/portal/screen/opportunities/horizon-results-platform/39948
If you are interested in contributing to the future of Organic Eprints, please get in contact with ICROFS: orgprints@icrofs.org! To get involved in Organic Farm Knowledge (as individual, institution, organisation and/or project), please contact organic-farmknowledge@fibl.org.
Editor: Karin Ullven, EPOK / Design: Christine Dilling, ICROFS
