On October 6, 2023, a seminar was held by UTP/PBS in Poland presenting the concept, goals, methodologies and research results of AGRICORE against the background of contemporary challenges facing agriculture. The meeting was attended by representatives of agricultural practice: representatives of agricultural organizations, including agricultural advisory services, as well as agricultural entrepreneurs and farmers.
During the first section of the seminar, the main assumptions and goals of the project as well as the biophysical module in the AGRICORE agent model used for assessing and shaping agricultural policy were presented by academic representatives from three scientific units: the Institute of Agrophysics – Polish Academy of Sciences in Lublin (IAPAS), the Bydgoszcz University of Science and Technology (UTP/PBS) and the Production Engineering Committee of the Polish Academy of Sciences. A representative of the Management Board of the Agency for Restructuring and Modernization of Agriculture (ARiMR), with experience in shaping agricultural policy as a high official in the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and previously serving as director of an agricultural advisory center, presented contemporary challenges of Agri-environment-climate policy, emphasizing the intensification of efforts undertaken for effective water management at the EU and national level, including: as part of the so-called “blue deal”. Later on, the representative of Bydgoszcz University (UTP/PBS) comprehensively discussed the problems of managing water resources in agriculture in the context of ecosystem services development, focusing on the caution in drawing too far-reaching conclusions regarding the scope and effects of climate change related to drought risk and needs for irrigation of agricultural land in Poland.
In the second part of the seminar, representatives from the Institute of Agrophysics of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IAPAS) explained the methodology for assessing the effects of agricultural policy in the AGRIORE project and the assessment of the impact of Measure M10 of the Rural Development Program 2014-2020 on the perception of Polish farmers in the terms of environmental and climate goals. Then, a delegate of the Bydgoszcz University of Science and Technology discussed issues related to the ARDIT tool used for data mining in agriculture and the natural environment. In the presentation, the possibilities of the use of ARDIT in Open Access mode by many stakeholders, whose needs drive beyond the strict goals of the AGRICORE project were shown.
In the final part of the meeting, a discussion between academics and representatives of agricultural practice took place. Prospects of using the tool AGRICORE were discussed in terms of common activities of agricultural producers in Poland, aimed at increasing the competitiveness of farms and verifying the usefulness of the developed instrument in the Polish use case, based on the opinions of practitioners as part of the tasks of the WP7, WP8 and WP9 packages of the project. The discussion confirmed the results of participatory research conducted on a representative sample in Poland, indicating the need to better adapt future agricultural policy instruments to the specific conditions of individual agents (agricultural farms). This was confirmed by the presence of commitments, e.g. under the measure M10.1, and the resulting barriers, such as blocking the opportunity of trading land for several years as well as respecting sowing dates of intercrops, which are problematic due to unfavorable weather conditions in specific regions of the country. e.g., in the Kuyavia-Pomeranian Voivodeship.
In conclusion, the seminar participants unanimously stated that the presented solutions, combined with progress in the development of information technologies and expansion of data sources, create opportunities for more effective use of public funds to achieve the goals of the Common Agricultural Policy.
