Farmers in Hungary are being taught how farming can benefit from the digital revolution through free online courses offered by the specially created Digital Agricultural Academy. The academy, housed at the Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences, in the first year of the project received, a 450 million HUF (about €1,2 million) to develop and present online courses and material.
Dr. Andrea Ambrus and Dr. Gabor Milics
The academy has offered the online courses since October 2021 to producers and farmers across Hungary, as well as Hungarians in the Carpathian region of Romania, Slovakia and the Ukraine, wherever the language is spoken. The website of the academy already shows over 100 000 downloads of the learning material in the first 7 months of operation.
Dr. Gabor Milics and Dr. Andrea Ambrus from the Hungarian University of Agricultural and Life Sciences (MATE) lead the programme as part of a consortium of three universities in Hungary and DJN Ltd. The academy forms part of the Hungarian government’s Digital Agriculture Strategy (DAS), one of the first in Europe. The 7 year programme aims to provide free online training services and various information to farmers to enable them to farm using modern digital methods, and tools.
“IT digitalisation was low amongst farmers who are aging while there are not that many young people active in the industry. We offer a free place to learn the required skills through our online material for older people too, who don’t know what the internet etc. is. The course modules and material are downloadable for farmers to access at their own leisure. The material describes how the digital revolution can change their lives,” says Dr. Ambrus.
The course material contains 9 modules with 30 pieces of downloadable materials, and the knowledge is extended in every year of the project. It is only available in the Hungarian language. It provides an overview of digitalisation in farming, fruit and vegetable farming in a digital age, IT as well as satellite technology, decision making tools, the use of drones etc.
“After this farmers will know how to change their lives by using digital technology solutions on their farms to enhance production etc. As a university we want to spread the knowledge and information. We have a lot of farmers who use and have downloaded the material. We are busy conducting an assessment after these first 6 months of offering the program to see how many farmers were reached and the impact of the program thus far,” says Dr Milics.
For more information:
Dr Gabor Milics
MATE
Tel: +36 70 364 5518
Email: milics.gabor@uni-mate.hu
Website: www.digitalisagrarakademia.hu