Digital marketing to promote sustainability in the agri-food industry

The Agriculture 4.0 movement is growing, and with that, the need for more farmers to adopt advanced technologies. SUSTAGRI4.0 was developed to address this need by focusing on small-scale and youn...

The aim was to successfully engage small-scale and young farmers, agriculture students and agribusiness owners in the countries represented by the consortium. The other core group were vocational education and training (VET) professionals since they played a pivotal role in shaping the E-Course. Secondary target groups also included agriculture support organisations, agriculture colleges, cooperatives, environmental organisations and VET companies. By reaching all of these target groups, the key objectives were to first understand the digital and marketing skills gap in agriculture and then design learning materials and a digital space that can help close the gap, primarily in the countries represented by the consortium with the possibility of wider impact to target groups that can speak English. The wider vision is that by developing these tools and freely accessible learning materials, this will serve as part of a greater transition not just to more sustainable agriculture practices, but also indirectly link to citizens gaining awareness about what sustainability means and in doing so, are more conscious about what they consume, which then links to food waste reduction and support of shortened food supply chains.

The first major set of activities centred around research to develop the E-Course. Partners began by conducting a literature review to reveal best cases when it comes to technology uptake, digital skills training and sustainable agriculture practices in their respective countries. The research then progressed to an online survey and in-person focus groups. Two sets of focus groups were done: one with VET professionals and one with agriculture students and/or farmers and agribusiness owners. After producing a report summarising key findings, a Knowledge and Training Mobility Exchange occurred in Spain with VET professionals to co-create the E-Course structure. The E-Course was developed in “bite-size” lessons in the form of YouTube videos and broken into five key modules following analysis from the research and outcomes of this Mobility Exchange. The design and content creation ran from November 2022 (beginning from developing the structure) until October 2023 (concluding with finalised videos uploaded to the project website and YouTube) and launched over a period of five weeks from October to November 2023. During the initial phase, partners created lessons in PowerPoint format. After the content phase was completed, the videos were recorded. The E-Course was developed with an instructor-led e-learning methodology which was an advantageous approach in terms of capturing the target group, but it also had difficulties in terms of consistency, time management, language adaptation of speakers and translations of videos. The workflow was: (i) Record video in English and using Microsoft PowerPoint; (ii) Extract subtitles files using the URL-tool downsub.com; (iii) translate the subtitles line by line by the open-source software Subtitle Edit, to all languages; (iv) load video files to Youtube, together with all SRT files and metadata; (v) connect the YouTube SUSTAGRI4.0 videos to the SUSTAGRI4.0 webpage. Several tools were assessed to support the translation process, and finally the option of subtitling was decided such that all lessons are presented verbally in English with the option to select Spanish, Greek, Italian or Dutch subtitles. That is, the SRT files for the translations were also tackled. To do this, two approaches were followed. Veed.io was the first considered tool, but due to the difficulties of working with a number of large files, other open source options were chosen. In the end YouTube was selected as the most reliable and time efficient approach. The E-Course was originally scheduled to launch in April, but due to various delays, it was completed in October. One of the primary reasons for the delay was the underestimated workload and the extensive amount of content that needed to be produced. Originally, more than 60 lessons were planned under Topics (under each Module). The extensive content development took longer than planned, and considering the complexity of integrating this vast amount of content into a complete course, some content was reduced to streamline the process. Another reason for the delay was that the videos were made by non-native English speakers. This required more retakes to ensure the videos were consistent and of high quality. Additionally, in the translation process, automatic translations had a high error rate. Experiments were done to find the best programme for this, which also took more time than planned. The second major result was development of the E-Commerce Platform named Grass. The first “draft” of this platform involved feedback from the consortium and stakeholders. Stakeholder consultations also revealed a strong presence of e-commerce for farmers already in existence and therefore, this platform focused on developing a training element to enable small-scale farmers and agribusiness owners to get over their fears of entering the digital space and exploring the concept of building online narratives (i.e. creating a story about their farm/business by developing a profile using text, photos and videos). The original proposal for this project involved two Mobility Exchanges. The second Mobility Exchange (LTTA C2) was removed after the project was awarded funds. The consortium decided that it was crucial to have farmer feedback on the E-Course, however. Therefore, it was decided to run testing locally as a way to gain the necessary outcomes. Given that iAgroCert was the partner meant to lead this event, they took the role of organising this “Plan B”. During the weeks running up to the planned series of local events, it became clear that various challenges, including not having a budget for the event, made it difficult to implement. Apart from a lack of budget, timing the in-person testing with necessary E-Course revisions was extremely difficult, especially considering the Grass Platform development which was happening simultaneously, as well as students and VET trainers having summer holidays after the exam period. The consortium agreed that farmer/agribusiness owner feedback was still crucial. Rather than in-person testing and feedback sessions, it was decided to have an online response form to the Grass Platform. A feedback form was created to test the platform in its second “draft” in January and February 2024 allowing for a finalised version of the Platform in March ahead of the Multiplier Events. Finally, all partners ran Multiplier Events in their respective countries to showcase Grass and present key results of the project. Activities were conducted with sustainability in mind. Where possible, for example when needing to print materials, recycled paper was used. In addition, the final project meeting (TPM03) was originally planned to be in-person. Despite the fact that face-to-face collaborations have greater impact than virtual ones, it was decided to turn this into an online meeting for several reasons, including the fact that the project was ending and the beneficial in-person collaborations would have come from the beginning and middle stages of the project. Furthermore, the meeting itself only lasted half a day and it was not justifiable (from a carbon emissions standpoint) to have partners travel hundreds of kilometres via planes for such a short event. As part of iAgrocert's commitment to sustainability, the organisation implemented several eco-friendly measures while organising the Multiplier Event. One of the key initiatives was the decision to produce a reusable banner to promote both the project and the event, minimising waste from single-use materials. The organisation consciously limited the number of printed promotional materials, opting for digital distribution wherever possible. Additionally, to further reduce environmental impact, attendees were provided with tote bags made from recyclable materials.

The two key results of this project have been the E-Course and the Grass E-Commerce Platform. The E-Course will be available indefinitely via YouTube and is featured currently on the project website and also the website of MVNGO, the partner leading this result. It has also been made accessible via EPALE (https://epale.ec.europa.eu/mt/node/352478). Grass (https://grass-sustagri.eu/) exists as a separate platform from the project website (https://sustagri.eu/) and will be available for at least two years post-project. This platform has been designed with a training element in mind to ensure that farmers and agribusiness owners who exhibit fears in entering the digital space will have additional support through a step-by-step guide and tutorial. It also contains information about sustainable agriculture and consumption to help raise awareness on the importance of sustainability, which incentivises consumers to shop locally. In addition, the International Research Report providing invaluable insights that helped shape the E-Course has also been published on Zenodo (https://zenodo.org/records/7852871#.ZEKWZ3ZBwuU), an open access platform that has the potential to reach academics and other interested stakeholders who are working in the same fields and sectors. To date, the Report has received 103 views and 98 downloads. The project itself has also been made available on Zenodo via this link: https://zenodo.org/communities/sustagri-erasmusplus/about.