Task 2.4 - Inno4Grass

Task 2.4 Consolidating knowledge through moderated electronic discussion groups (M6 – M32)
Task-lead: AWE in collaboration with all partners

The objective of this task is the consolidation of additional innovations available on web sites and through modern communication means. Innovations identified and described in Task 2.2 will be used as input. Electronic communication means will include internet sites and discussion groups in social medias such as Google groups, Facebook sites and national and international online networking groups. They are real time media that can be easily used on a smart phone and can be used for a very broad communication. They are easily accessible to farmers and experts from industry, science, government, education and advice. Interactive internet sites already exist in some countries (e.g. in The Netherlands: www.veeteeltforum.nl, www.prikkebord.nl). First, an inventory of the useable internet platforms of the eight partner countries will be performed. Second, grassland innovation topics will be initiated in the discussion groups by Facilitator Agents (FA). They will moderate discussions and play an active role by asking questions, proposing ideas, delivering information, etc. in order to stimulate debates. Incentives will be used for stimulating farmers to get involved in the knowledge building process. One incentive is to spread novel, realistic, and practical ideas from the project directly via the discussion groups. Another one is to let farmers be part of the technological development progress, for instance by asking questions about their needs on possible improvement of existing decision support tools on grassland management. The key idea will be to motivate more farmers into embracing new ideas into tangible and meaningful results at farm level. The electronic discussion groups will be organised within linguistic groups although some multilingual farmers could take part in different linguistic groups. There will be one or several internet platform sites per country (for instance one group per farm type).