What’s New In PRISM Project?
IO1 PRISM: PRISM Beginners Guide
The project PRISM has a duration of 24 months, starting in December 2020 and will last until December 2022. The main objective of the project is to develop an Open Education Resource for VET trainers to meet the farmers’ long-term need for education, towards the innovation and modernization of farming and agriculture in the frames of Agriculture 4.0 so as to secure their livelihood in their sector over time. The project has been running for 9 months, and there has been made significant progress on the project deliverables.
The main deliverable from IO1 is the PRISM Beginners’ Guide. This is developed in an easy to understand manner, enabling a deep appreciation of the concepts of blending agriculture with the 4th Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0). The readership of the Beginners’Guide, is targeted towards trainers, mentors, farmers, technology experts and other relevant stakeholders making them aware of the terminology used, the state of the art of Agriculture 4.0, as well as its prominent effects on modern-day farming.
Once published, the guide will be freely available on the project’s website at https://prism-euproject.eu/
IO2 PRISM: A Collection of Case-studies of varied fields on best practices in farming and agriculture based on Agriculture 4.0.
In this initial phase of the project, the partners have already developed the structure of the guide and are finalising the content and literature within the guide.
The main topics of the guide are as follows:
1.Introduction to Agriculture 4.0
2.Digitization In Agricultural Sector
3.Guide to Hardware Technologies in Agri4.0
4.Guide to Software Technologies in Agri 4.0
5.Emerging Trends in Agri 4.0
6.Role of Governments to Fostering Agri4.0
Starting February 2021, the PRISM partnership began working on Intellectual Output 2 (IO2) to identify and collect best practice applications of the 4th Industrial Revolution in farming and agriculture in all project partner countries.
All best practices are made into case studies to allow easier assimilation of the philosophy of Agriculture 4.0 to the project’s target group, i.e. trainers, farmers, relevant stakeholders. Mapping this variation of best
practices on Agriculture 4.0 and then explaining how it varies using targeted case studies, can yield uniquely instructive insights for practices.
Each partner carried out a thorough literature review of academic material, governmental documents, research carried out nationally and internationally and reports published in relation to best practices on Agriculture 4.0 to contribute with sufficient material and knowledge. Following this, a total of 12 best practices being implemented in all project partner countries were chosen.
The selected best practices cover a variety of hardware and software technologies, i.e. drones, Internet of Things, Machine Learning, robots, sensors, etc. After this, all 12 best practices were organized into case study format that will assist in the next step of IO2 which is the synthesis and integration of the case studies into digital videos and an eBook.
In the upcoming months, the partnership will work on the development of IO2’s final product, i.e. the digital videos and an eBook, in all partner languages and in English. Both the digital videos and the eBook will complement the learning process of the project’s target groups in the wholeness of the project.
IO3 PRISM: VET Trainer’s Curriculum
IO3 will result in a curriculum addressed to VET Trainers. It will contain the information necessary for enabling a VET Trainer to educate/train farmers in matters of modern technology relevant to their field of work.
In order to establish an appropriate and relevant PRISM curriculum in the period from June until September, all partners have conducted a small focus group consisting of 5 individuals, 2 of which were VET trainers and 3 farmers/agricultural entrepreneurs in order to investigate their needs involving digitization of the agriculture sector. The partners conducted a total of 6 focus groups, one in each project country.
The aim of this activity is to identify the needs (using focus groups), differences and particularities among the participating countries through interactions with the target groups in each country. This activity was very important in order to achieve a consensus amongst the partners that the VET curriculum can be usable and will meet the needs of all the partners in their national context.
The information gathered from the focus groups will contribute to the establishment of details on the curriculum content. All of the information collected from each country, will be analyzed and summarized in one Common report that will be published on the project website. The curriculum is expected to contain the background/history for Agriculture 4.0, the prominent technologies for modern farming (drones, Internet of Things, Nanotechnology, Artificial Intelligence, etc.) and last but not least the necessary entrepreneurial skills for the modern farmer.
The next step in the IO3 is to design the structure of the VET curriculum. During the next period, the partners will be working on the creation of the structure, the scope, the aims, the methods of development, the format, and the contents of the training curriculum. The design and structure of the curriculum will be based on the analysis that will be made based on the information from the focus groups.
Written by
Face Team
