Collaborating for Impact: Ireland and Europe working together on agri food research

The event took place at the European Commission Representation to Ireland offices in Dublin and focused on Ireland’s significant contributions to European agri-food research and innovation.

Mairead McGuinness, EU Commissioner for Financial Services, Financial Stability and Capital Markets Union was the main speaker.

Commissioner McGuinness said; “Improving European competitiveness is a top priority for Member States and Commission. Research and invocation are key to unlocking European potential. The EU’s Horizon Europe is the world’s largest publicly funded research and innovation programme.

“It tackles shared challenges, like climate change and building our digital future. Researchers from Ireland are driving essential parts of these European projects, including several agricultural initiatives led by Teagasc.

“The three initiatives being launched today – Climate Farm Demo, SafeHabitus and RefreSCAR, are excellent examples of what we can achieve with Horizon Europe funding. These initiatives will tackle emission reductions, improve farm sustainability and address the significant data gaps on farm accidents and fatalities, helping to make real progress on vital topics.”

Speaking at the event, Professor Frank O’Mara, director of Teagasc, said: “Teagasc actively pursue research collaborations with like-minded research institutions for the betterment of the Irish agri-food sector. Building research and innovation capacity and cooperation across Europe is critical to European competitiveness and the sustainability of the agri-food sector. This means ensuring all countries and regions of Europe can actively contribute”.

Updates on three Horizon Europe-funded initiatives were presented:

• Who Gets Counted? Improving EU Farm Safety Data – from the Safe Habitus project https://www.safehabitus.eu/
• Annual Campaign of Farm Demonstration Visits – from the Climate Farm Demo project https://climatefarmdemo.eu/
• SCAR Engage: enhancing member state involvement in research snf innovation cooperation – from the REFRESCAR project https://scar-europe.org/home-scar/refrescar

Safe Habitus project

Dr David Meredith from the Safe Habitus project thanked Commissioner McGuinness for her long-standing support for improvements in farmer health and farm safety.

He said: “Commissioner McGuinness’ call for improvements in the data and knowledge relating to farm injuries and fatalities and the provision of evidence to inform policy options was clearly influential in ensuring that this important topic received funding as part of Horizon Europe.”

He added: “This allowed Teagasc and 19 partner organisations from across the EU to develop the SafeHabitus project which seeks to improve understanding and awareness of how farmer health and safety challenges impact on their working conditions and quality of life.”

As part of this work, we have completed a detailed analysis of the data available to EU policy stakeholders and found that the average number of farm fatalities is at least 70% higher than the data reported to Eurostat each year.

So, whilst the Eurostat data indicates that there are an average of 315 occupational deaths on farms each year, the reality is that the true figure is, at least, 545 deaths.

This finding helps improve understanding of the scale of the challenge faced by farmers, farm workers, farm families and rural communities. It also highlights the need for continued support for investment in farm facilities and equipment that improve safety and the development or adoption of safer farming practices.

Climate Farm Demonstration Visits

Climate Farm Demo is an EU network of Pilot Demo Farmers covering 28 countries which aims to accelerate the adoption of Climate Smart Farming practices by farmers. The project connects the 1,500 Pilot Demo Farmers and their Climate Farm Advisors at European and National levels, to increase knowledge exchange, and the implementation of climate adaptation and mitigation measures. The Climate Smart Farming practices will be demonstrated to the wider farming community across six annual demo-campaigns (4,500 demo-events) thanks to interactive and peer to peer learning.

Dr Tom O’Dwyer from the Climate Farm Demo project said: “Demonstrating climate solutions on commercial farms across Europe will accelerate the adoption of these solutions by European farmers. Farm demonstrations are a recognised means of enabling farmers to acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to adopt new practices and to modify their farming practices in the face of both challenges and opportunities.”

SCAR-Engage Programme

The SCAR-Engage Programme is an initiative designed to boost the engagement of European countries in research and innovation coordination activities. It supports involvement in a European committee called the Standing Committee on Agricultural Research (SCAR). This committee brings together European countries and the European Commission with the aim of sharing information on research priorities across Europe and coordinating investments at the national and EU level. SCAR covers the area of agriculture, food systems, fisheries, forestry and the wider bioeconomy.

Dr Órlaith Ní Choncubhair from Teagasc said: “The SCAR-Engage Programme has been developed within the RefreSCAR project, a Horizon Europe funded project led by Teagasc, which provides support to the SCAR working groups. The programme is overseen by a team led by Foodscale Hub in Serbia and has already brought new SCAR working group members from Bulgaria, Greece, Iceland, Poland and Romania on-board in its first year. The second call for Expressions of Interest is launching in November and inviting applications from other SCAR Member Countries to join the programme.”