Teaching precision farming and entrepreneurship for European students: Sparkle online course

Within the framework of the European project named ‘SPARKLE’, an online course was created after studying educational needs on precision agriculture (PA), state of the art of technologies and a prospective study of the commercial sector. Five educational and research institutions, high-tech farms and enterprises specializing in technology transfer created the syllabus of the course and the platform contents. The course was designed to provide 30 h of student dedication, via online presentations, documents and videos for each topic. A free pilot course started in April 2020 and 385 students from Italy, Portugal, Greece & Spain enrolled. To trace performance and acquisition of competences, questionnaires were completed by students for each topic and a final overall test. Students’ opinions about the course were also registered using anonymous polls, and results evaluated, to be able to enhance the Sparkle course for subsequent editions. Students also took part in a business model competition, to solve real challenges proposed by farms, related to the use of these technologies

Efficiency of vegetables produced in Glasshouses: The Impact of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) in land management decision making

Glasshouse farming is one of the most intensive types of production of agricultural products. Via this process, consumers have the ability to consume mainly off-season vegetables and farmers are able to reduce operational risks, due to their ability to control micro-climate conditions. This type of farming is quite competitive worldwide, this being the main reason for formulating and implementing assessment models measuring operational performance. The methodology used in this study is Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), which has wide acceptance in agriculture, among other sectors of the economy. The production protocols of four different vegetables-cucumber, eggplant, pepper, and tomato-were evaluated. Acreage (m2), crop protection costs (€), fertilizers (€), labor (Hr/year), energy (€), and other costs (€) were used as inputs. The turnover of every production unit (€) was used as the output. Ninety-eight agricultural holdings participated in this survey. The dataset was obtained by face-to-face interviews. The main findings verify the existence of significant relative deficiencies (including a mean efficiency score of 0.87) as regards inputs usage, as well as considerably different efficiency scores among the different cultivations. The most efficient of these was the eggplant production protocol and the least efficient was that used for the tomato. The implementation of DEA verified its utility, providing incentives for continuing to use this methodology for improving land management decision making. © 2019 by the authors

A preliminary review on the adaptation of crops and ecosystem services to agricultural policy and climate change

The use of different methodologies of integrated impact assessment in agricultural production is a powerful tool in the hands of scientists to evaluate various factors. Integrated impact assessment with model development has been proposed by various studies as a mean of enhancing the management of complex systems. The aim of this paper is to present the preliminary review on the integrated impact assessment of the CAP changes and climate change on agricultural production, in order to determine the adaptation of farmers to possible policy changes. Copyright © 2020 for this paper by its authors

Methodologies used to assess the impacts of climate change in agricultural economics: a rapid review

Studies of climate change impacts on agriculture are always used by the policy makers to plan their future policies. The European Union increased the efforts to measure the impact of the policies, but impact assessment has always been a difficult field of study for all research areas. Many methodologies and tools have been applied for assessing the impacts on climate change in agriculture. This paper presents the findings of a literature review on studies in the field of impact assessment of climate change impacts on agricultural economics. A two-stage analysis was conducted. In the first stage, studies are analysed and classified using different criteria. At the second stage of this paper, the methodologies used to assess the impacts of climate change are analysed. The results are provided by a rapid review in the literature from 2010 to 2020. The main findings of the research were that mathematical modelling and scenario analysis were the most common methodologies used as standalone methods or in combination with other methods. Copyright © 2021 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd

Socioeconomic impact of climate change in rural areas of greece using a multicriteria decision-making model

Agriculture is the main and, in some cases, the only, source of income and employment in rural areas. The change in the conditions under which agriculture is practiced has various effects on the agricultural economy but also on the social structure of rural areas. Climate change has multiple effects on agricultural production, necessitating the reorganization of agricultural production in some cases. These effects of climate change will also impact the economic and social aspects of farms in rural areas. This paper attempts to identify these effects by measuring the socioeconomic impacts of climate change in the region of Central Macedonia in Greece. For this reason, a multicriteria model was developed to simulate these impacts by estimating a set of seven social and economic indicators. The model was implemented to the average farm which was estimated from the main cultivations of the region. A scenario analysis was also used in combination with the multicriteria model. The multicriteria model suggests modifications are needed in the average farm crop plan of the region as a result of the climate change impact. The scenarios results show that climate change will negatively affect all the social and economic indicators and will continue to affect them over the years. These results can be used by policymakers to understand the economic and social impacts of climate change in the region to plan their future policies. © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland