NEFERTITI AND FARM ATTRACTIVENESS How social media can spread positive messages about farming careers
Creators: name: Vér, András
name: McKee, Annie
name: Moriarty, John
name: Honegger, Sandra
name: O'Dwyer, Tom
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2022
Subjects: farmer-to-farmer learning , socal media, networking, farming, extension, knowledge exchance

description: NEFERTITI is a ‘Horizon 2020’ project that will run until the end of 2021. It supports on-farm demonstration activities and farmer-to-farmer learning that supports innovation uptake. The name NEFERTITI reflects the full project title: ‘Networking European Farms to Enhance Cross Fertilisation and Innovation Uptake Through Demonstration’. Networking... The project involves ten networks each with a theme. The themes focus on aspects of innovation in livestock production, arable farming, and horticulture. They bring together 45 regional clusters (‘hubs’) of demonstration farmers and people who innovate in agriculture, such as advisors, facilitators, researchers, industry representatives and policy makers. You can Farm: Farm attractiveness Network 10, called ‘Farm Attractiveness’ has the goal of identifying and supporting new people and new pathways into agriculture across Europe. This network supports knowledge exchange demonstration events held on farms and online, with host farmers who are ‘new entrants’ to agriculture. The objective of the demonstration events are to encourage young people to see farming as a future and career that is both worthwhile and worth considering. Network Activities In 2019 a total of 39 events were organised by Network 10 hubs, all of which were either on-farm or in-organisation. In 2020, 31 events were held, 12 of which were held online in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Online events organised included webinars, panel discussions, and social media ‘takeovers’. One UK virtual event included contributions from four partner countries. The use of social media was critical to the success of the demonstration events, both on-farm, in organisation, or held online. Social media promotion of events attracted young and diverse audiences, and careful use of different platforms appealed to different localities and types of participants (e.g. agricultural college students). For example, the social media ‘takeovers’ involved young farmers directly uploading stories, videos, pictures, and other content to the social media of partner organisations. Videos from the events could be shared via social media to enhance knowledge exchange and links were made available to allow for later viewing. Findings Multimedia use and the use of diverse social media platforms has the potential increase and target audiences. E.g. Instagram events, targeted at young people, also promoted on Facebook and Twitter, including sharing video links. Virtual events have enabled an international dimension to be added to events. E.g. UK webinar featuring contributions from other partners Online events are available for knowledge exchange with those who cannot participate ‘live’. E.g. Webinar recordings are available on YouTube and Instagram highlights of social media takeovers are available on the host channel, and Instagram TV.