Title: Students' training needs towards precision agriculture

Authors: Aikaterini Paltaki; Anastasios Michailidis

Addresses: Department of Agricultural Economics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, 54124, Greece ' Department of Agricultural Economics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, 54124, Greece

Abstract: SPARKLE is a European Union project, where one of the main objectives is to help narrow the innovation divide on entrepreneurship and the effective application of sustainable precision agriculture. Precision agriculture (PA) is an innovative production method but the lack of training does not allow farmers to properly assess the negative and positive aspects of PA. Data were collected through questionnaires from 100 students of northern Greek agricultural science universities. The aim of this paper was to provide input for the identification of students' training needs and lack of knowledge in skills and their willingness or interest in PA. Our results indicate that most respondents have a low level of knowledge about precision farming and its practices. Significantly, the findings reveal the students' attitude that this production system requires constant and relevant training. A more detailed discussion can be found in the SPARKLE project report, available through the website (http://sparkle-project.eu/).

Keywords: training; technology; sustainable agriculture; precision farming; categorical regression.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSAMI.2020.112081

International Journal of Sustainable Agricultural Management and Informatics, 2020 Vol.6 No.3, pp.202 - 213

Received: 14 Dec 2019
Accepted: 27 Jan 2020
Published online: 04 Jan 2021 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article