Objectives

To achieve the goals of the European Green Deal and other EU strategies, we need to test and apply innovative solutions to combat climate change and adapt to its impacts. It's essential that these solutions can be used in different regions and EU countries. In the new Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), farm advisors are recognized as key players in the agricultural knowledge and innovation system (AKIS). Their role is to share new ideas, help develop innovation projects, and spread their results. Advisors are crucial in helping farmers adopt climate-smart practices, which are necessary for more sustainable farming systems. However, advisors themselves don’t always feel confident on the complex topic of climate change, and lack the capacity for providing context-specific climate smart advice to farmers. 
The ClimateSmartAdvisors project aims to mobilize the EU's agricultural advisory community to speed up the adoption of climate-smart farming (CSF) practices by farmers across the EU. We want to enhance the role of advisors by strengthening their ability to provide targeted advice and share solutions developed in the Climate Farm Demo project. This will be done through the creation of 260 advisory Communities of Practice (CoPs), which are groups for peer-to-peer knowledge exchange on climate-smart farming. By the end of the project, we aim to have a strong network of 140 Climate Smart Coaches (CSCs) and 1,360 Climate Smart Advisors (CSAs), who will work alongside the network of demonstration farmers in Climate Farm  Demo. These advisors will improve their skills through expert training, peer learning in CoPs, and involvement in local innovation projects on climate-smart farming. The project will also develop a knowledge repository to help advisors share effective climate smart methods and practices for farmers and advisors.

Activities

In the first year of the ClimateSmartAdvisors project, the focus has been on laying the groundwork and preparing for the network activities to begin. This preparation included the creation of 27 country reports that examine the current state of climate-smart advisory services across the EU. These reports identify the gaps, challenges, and opportunities for improving these services. We also compiled a large inventory of 146 multi-actor innovation projects (MIPs) related to climate-smart farming, along with other relevant projects and initiatives, to guide the project’s development.
To prepare for networking, we developed detailed guidelines on how to establish, manage, and evaluate Communities of Practice (CoPs), facilitate knowledge sharing around 12 specific thematic areas, and connect with national and EU-level agricultural networks. These guidelines were shared with the first group of Climate Smart Coaches (CSCs) during a 4-day training session, to help them lead their CoPs.
In addition, we identified areas where innovation is needed through a detailed analysis of the MIPs inventory. As a result, we launched a call for small-scale co-design innovation experiments (CoDIEs) to address these gaps, and three CoDIEs were selected to begin in January 2025.
By the 18th month of the project, we have established 39 active CoPs, each consisting of 6 advisors (1 CSC and 5 Climate Smart Advisors or CSAs). These groups have started exchanging knowledge and experiences. Additionally, 12 thematic knowledge exchange events are scheduled between October 2024 and March 2025, 7 of which will be held in collaboration with the Climate Farm Demo project.
Finally, we have begun developing a Farming for Climate knowledge repository, which will include climate-smart advisory tools, carbon and climate assessment tools, and practices for mitigation and adaptation. This online resource is expected to launch in April 2025.