EU24093 Climate Smart Advisors (KB-50-006-027)

Agricultural advisory services can play an important role in developing resilient agricultural systems, but this is still underutilized. The aim of Climate Smart Advisors (CSA) is to mobilize and stimulate the EU agricultural advisory community to accelerate the uptake of climate-neutral agricultural practices and techniques. This is done by increasing the capacity of advisors to provide targeted climate advice and by making climate-neutral practices and solutions (developed in Climate Farm Demo) more widely known and available through advisors. Through a network of 260 Communities of Practice (CoPs), knowledge exchange and cross-fertilization on climate-neutral agricultural practices and methods between agricultural advisors at national and European level is stimulated. Advisors in the CoPs are supported with training and access to an interactive knowledge base on measures and methods for climate advice and climate-neutral agriculture. Through collaborations with innovation projects and AKIS actors, we pool knowledge and strengthen advisory capacity so that advisors can optimally support growers in the transition to climate-neutral agriculture. The direct application of the developed advisory capacity to make agricultural and horticultural practices more sustainable is central to the CSA network.