Green transition to be “the new normal” for future farmers

The new research project FEAST (Farming Education and the Agricultural Sustainable Transition) is based on the fundamental assumption that the transition to sustainable agriculture does not happen suddenly, but is an ongoing process. For future farmers, the green transition will entail lifelong learning as “the new normal”, where society and nature's demands for sustainability are continuously evolving. And it is crucial that sustainable practices are embedded deeper into agricultural education to ensure both their adequacy and permanence in the face of continued and more severe climate change. 

Over a three-year period, the project team will work to deepen the understanding of sustainability as a core value and practice across agricultural paradigms, particularly organic, regenerative and conventional agriculture. Christian Gamborg explains: ‘The main assumption of the project is that the transition to more sustainable agriculture is an ongoing process rather than a one-off shift.’

Preparing future farmers for the sustainability challenges ahead

Through dialogue, FEAST will promote collaboration on the green transition especially among Denmark's agricultural educators and students, as well as with other food sector actors, to prepare future farmers for the sustainability challenges ahead. ‘It is in the collaboration amongst schools and we researchers that we will all learn more about what the future of sustainable agriculture could look like,’ says Rebecca Leigh Rutt.

FEAST will map views and experiences of sustainability in the Danish agricultural education and food sector through observations, curriculum review, interviews, and a stakeholder survey. ‘We lack knowledge about how agricultural schools tackle the challenges of the green transition and sustainability, and in particular what notions of sustainability they work with and how it fits into the role of agriculture in the green transition,’ explains Christian Gamborg.

Agricultural schools with different sustainability paradigms will act as learning laboratories to improve the embedding of sustainability throughout the agricultural education sector. Mickey Gjerris points out the importance of diversity in participating institutions: ‘It is important that we have several different agricultural schools involved - from conventional, to organic, to regenerative agriculture - to get a comprehensive understanding - and to pave the way for dialogue between different views on how we should cultivate the land.’ 

Through the project, the results will be disseminated nationally and internationally to relevant stakeholders through reports, conferences, articles, social media and podcasts.

‘We will not only look at and involve the agricultural schools but also some of the different actors in the value chain, because innovation and green transition require collaboration throughout the chain and across sustainability ideas,’ says Christian Gamborg and continues: ‘We are lucky to have a number of talented partners in this project who will also help anchor the results in the different agri-food environments.’

The expected outcome of FEAST, in addition to increasing knowledge of sustainability practices across the agricultural sector, is to help bridge the gap between different sustainability paradigms.