In July, the partners from all 6 countries were reunited in Luxembourg for two intense days of discussions and in-person meetings.
On the first day, we started with a warm-up and brainstormed on the activities regarding communication through a "world café". Partners were divided into 3 groups and a lot of ideas came up regarding:
🎮 the creation of quizzes or games regarding the dairy sector
📰 the deconstruction of some myths about the dairy industry
👨🌾 the organisation of activities for the citizens, such as Open Farm Days
Being reunited is always very motivating for everyone and that's typically when the best ideas arise!
There were also scientific discussions organised to keep everyone in the loop about the different topics of the project. These discussions were organised around the 6 clusters and were led by the group leaders of each specific working group:
📈 Production
♀ Fertility
🐮 Welfare
🌡 Heat stress
🧀 Transformation
🌱 Environment
All partners are very motivated and ready to find creative solutions to the problems arising from the number and variety of data.
After a full day of meetings, we were happy to get some fresh air and to visit a dairy farm in Gostingen, near Luxembourg city. The farmer, Romain Weirich, gave us a presentation of his farm. Additionally to his dairy herd, Romain also has a vineyard and an educational farm. We also had the opportunity to learn more about how farmers can adopt Climate Smart Farming tools through the project Climate Farm Demo and discovered the audit results and current climate measures, as well as future development plans for the farm "Haff Weirich".
Day 2 was dedicated to the status of the different Work Packages (WPs), but also to the link between these WPs. We discussed a lot on how to design the best possible tool for our farmers and tried to answer a lot of practical questions that arised while brainstorming. We also had an overview of the deliverables for the next period and had a steering committee to discuss the more administrative aspects of the project.
After these two full and intense days of meetings and discussions, all partners are very motivated and ready to work with a clearer vision. Even if we all meet regularly through videocalls, these in-person meetings are essential to bring the discussions to another level.