3 questions to Guillaume Provoost, CoVE Belgium Leader

The Belgium COVE is led by INAGRO. Let’s learn more about this organization and its role in the project.

Inagro is a non-profit research and advisory institute for agriculture and horticulture located in Belgium. The core business of Inagro is the delivery of scientifically substantiated practical research and the transfer of knowledge to stakeholders. The scientific and technical staff of Inagro performs a comprehensive practice-driven and oriented research program in its own professional operational infrastructure and on-farm. Intensive collaboration with stakeholders enables the implementation of those research results. Inagro transfers and disseminates knowledge through scientific and more popular publications, the weekly Inagro newsletter, open field days, demonstration days, platforms, workshops, symposia, and events. Fast, direct, and easily accessible communication with growers and stakeholders is a key mission of Inagro. With over 9000 registered members, Inagro has a very well-established and vast network of farmers and other stakeholders.

What is the “mission” of the Belgian COVE?

Cove Belgium consists of two core partners, namely INAGRO and VIVES. Inagro is the partner that mainly focuses on practice-oriented research and advice for farmers and horticulturists, consequently ‘lifelong learning’. VIVES provides higher education and engages in hands-on research and professionally oriented bachelor’s degree programs in six fields of study spread over its five campuses. VIVES also contributes to innovations and has a regional, national, and international impact on social development.

Within our COVE, the aim is to support both Inagro and Vives because we feel that we are currently missing opportunities to learn from each other and train students. Students mainly gain theoretical insights into certain systems around soil and fertilization, but the aim within this Cove is to further familiarize students with practice and train them in a structured way in practice. The students are the future of the agricultural sector and can often already take part of their knowledge home to convince their farmer parents to apply certain principles.

On the other hand, the aim is to expand our COVE and build a beautiful network where farmers, advisors, students, etc., can ask questions and brainstorm about important issues in the agricultural sector.

Finally, it is also the aim to transfer our knowledge to our foreign partners and also gain knowledge from them, but more about this in the next part.

What is the “added value” of the Belgian COVE for the AF4F project?

We have great expertise in training and knowledge transfer, and we want to share this with the partners. Members of Inagro receive a weekly newsletter and frequent personal invitations to events and training based on their interests. Inagro organizes more than 150 activities a year, such as training sessions, field trial visits, and demos. Expertise on regenerative agriculture. For 20 years, the Organic Demonstration Farm of Inagro has acted as a lighthouse farm on regenerative farming practices for our local farming community. In 2022, Inagro created, with Optifarm, a similar lighthouse for conventional farmers. On a yearly basis, different projects, local learning networks, and demonstration activities on various topics. We mainly want to share how we approach certain things to involve farmers, advisors, students, etc., in the agrifood sector and the challenges in this sector. Additionally, we want to set up exchange programs for students so that they can gain a lot of experience/knowledge within our consortium.

The strength of the consortium is its diversity, and through this diversity, we can achieve very beautiful things.

When we finish the AF4F project, what would be the greatest achievement of the project in your opinion?

The greatest achievement of the project is to ensure that we maintain long-term sustainability, and I think this is also alive in the consortium. How can we continue to play an important role in the agrifood sector in Europe (and maybe beyond) with the acquired knowledge, partnerships, etc.? We want to have an impact in this sector and, together with the stakeholders, ensure that we are flexible to future challenges in the sector. By being innovative, we will also be able to tackle future challenges.

But my greatest wish is mainly to secure the future in the agrifood sector, and therefore I find it very important to involve the students in the story. Maintaining a combination of students, advisors, farmers, and horticulturists at a European level would be the strongest achievement. And I secretly dream a little about maintaining the AGRIFOOD4FUTURE consortium after the project so that we can continue to strengthen each other.