EurAgri Webinar Series 2024

If the Rural Economy is to achieve more resilient and sustainable farming and food systems (SFS), there is a need for entrepreneurship and innovation. Entrepreneurs have innovative ideas, take risks, and have a natural ability to organise and manage resources effectively. They play a crucial role in developing SFS by introducing new approaches, products or services, creating jobs, and contributing to economic, environmental and social growth.

Innovation, i.e., putting something new into practice, can be as simple as developing a novel way of doing something faster, cheaper or more sustainably. It may lead to a new business, but that is not always the initial ambition. Innovation was traditionally considered a pipeline – ideas in one end, new processes or services out the other – but it is far from a linear process. In reality, successful entrepreneurs and innovators are serial problem solvers who operate around three in three arenas:

• Knowledge (or technology) - what is needed to do things differently?
• Market - what do end users need?
• Implementation - how do I put this into practice?

As they progress, the innovation becomes more clearly defined (and refined), they gain greater certainty of their idea's ability to deliver in practice, and the risks are reduced. They describe their journey from concept to delivery as one where their ideas change as they learn, discovering ways to overcome obstacles and often finding help in unexpected places.

This Euragri-led Webinar Series aims to highlight and demonstrate the role of the entrepreneur in transforming SFS. The expertise and examples offered by the presenters will provide participants with insights and knowledge-sharing opportunities on how they might grow and apply their entrepreneurial and innovation skills in their areas of activity along the SFS chain.

The target audience are participants in the SFS supply chain, including students and those starting their careers, including farmers, processors/ feed compounders/animal health/ equipment providers, policymakers and consumers.

Scotland's Rural College, SRUC, Northern Ireland's Agri-Food and BioSciences Institute (AFBI) and Teagasc will host the series. AFBI will host the third Webinar on May 9th, from 1400 to 15:40 (UK Time, GMT+1) on a theme of Growing Value from Data Entrepreneurship on Rural Northern Irish Farms. In this third event we will hear from researchers and entrepreneurs about the challenges they have overcome to build a viable business from farm data.