VISIT TO SLOVAKIAN AGRICULTURE UNIVERSITY IN NITRA

Prof. Astrida Miceikienė from the Research Institute for Bioeconomy (Faculty of Bioeconomy development) visited Slovakian agriculture university in Nitra on 30/09/2019 – 04/10/2019. She came to this University for teaching visit and participated in the celebration of 60th anniversary of the foundation of the Faculty of Economic and Management. This events attended 480 guests from 16 countries, 30 partner faculties and university and 27 business partners http://www.fem.uniag.sk/en/news-reader/items/celebration-of-the-60th-anniversary-of-the-foundation-of-the-fem-sua-nitra/

Astrida Miceikienė taught master students on the topics of tax and taxation of Lithuania and EU. During the visit the professor met with the researchers from the Faculty of Economics and Management, guests of the Faculty and discussed opportunities for cooperation. She presented study programs of the Faculty of Bioeconomy development and the possibilities for exchanges studies at Vytautas Magnus University Agriculture Academy. During the stay at the Faculty the possible cooperation in research, the inter-university cooperation within the framework of the Erasmus + program establish and strengthen the scientific cooperation were discussed with Dean of the Faculty prof. Elena Horska. Astrida Miceikiene was presented research fields at Faculty of Bioeconomy development, projects and research journals.

What factors could speed up the bioeconomy development? Have scholars around the world found the answer?

Climate change, depletion of biological resources worldwide, provision of food, clean water, energy to humanity becoming an increasingly hot issue – all of this urges for the innovations inherent to bioeconomy and offering an integrated approach towards economic development, social and environmental sustainability in agriculture, forestry and aquaculture.

Currently, the European bioeconomy market accounts for about EUR 2.4 trln using about 2 bln tonnes of biomass for production and creating jobs for about 22 mln people. According to the forecasts by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), bioeconomy is expected to become the core principle of the European economic development by 2055.

In the week of Global Climate Strikes, on 26 – 28 September, scholars from 28 different countries all over the world gathered in Kaunas to address the global climate change issues and explore the options. For 3 days, 200 global experts were discussing the topical questions in this field proposing social and economic innovations to speed up the process at the International Scientific Conference “Rural Development 2019: Research and Innovation for Bioeconomy” hosted by Vytautas Magnus University Agriculture Academy (VMU Agriculture Academy).

“We have arrived at the conclusion that social innovations are as important as technology innovations, as the former would enable including the entire society into bioeconomy development. However, the issue we are facing today is that social capital is declining in rural areas, and this has been confirmed both by Lithuanian and foreign scholars. We therefore must work together to explore the methods to help improve the situation,” firmly states prof. Vilma Atkočiūnienė at the Faculty of Bioeconomy Development of VMU Agriculture Academy, who is one of the event organizers.

The scholar has noted that the event held at the international scale has doubtlessly provided its participants with new ideas for research, expanded the boundaries of understanding of the importance of bioeconomy, encouraged them for more active international collaboration.

The Business and Science Forum “Bioeconomy Development as the Prerequisite of Long-Term Competitiveness and Wellbeing” was also held during the Conference and involved discussions among representatives of the state, research institutions, business, farmer self-governance organizations. The discussions were aimed at finding answers to the question of strengthening collaboration between economy developers, society, and align it with the environmental expectations, and how social innovations may contribute to improvement of viability of regions.

Discussion of the small farm issues proposing the tools for preserving their sustainability was under particular focus during the conference. The participants were analysing the economic, social and environmental aspects of development of small farms, discussing about the contribution of small farms into the efforts towards sustainability in the agricultural and food sectors in Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Turkey, Romania, Serbia, and Moldova.

Commenting on the country’s bioeconomy situation, Rimantas Sinkevičius, Chairman of the Committee on Economics at the Seimas, has noted that, today, everyone must feel responsible for the future, because each of us is facing the challenges of climate change and the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Therefore, there is no doubt that the only right path for sustainable development of humanity lies in promotion of bioeconomy and lengthening the chain of use of natural resources, generating the maximum possible economic and environmental effect.

“Alas, Lithuania is not yet among the leading countries able to present plenty of bioeconomy development outcomes. As you are eye witnessing the huge piles of logs or grains to be exported, you are realizing that we are still far from understanding what bioeconomy actually is,” claims R. Sinkevičius.

Prof. Astrida Miceikienė, Dean of the Faculty of Bioeconomy Development of VMU Agriculture Academy and Chair of the organizing committee of the Conference “Rural Development 2019: Research and Innovation for Bioeconomy” has noted that it is not a coincidence that bioeconomy development is currently one of the topical issues across the globe, as the societies are facing increasingly more challenges related to climate change. Moreover, the stocks of fossil natural resources are becoming depleted inevitably. Bioeconomy covers sustainable production of renewable biological resources and processing of the resources and waste flows into added-value products: food, fodder, industrial products of biological origin, bioenergy. Agricultural, forestry, fishery, food, pulp and paper production, as well as a part of chemistry, biotechnology and energy industries could participate in development of this branch.

“Bioeconomy is not an autonomous economy sector – it is a multi-dimensional mechanism involving not only agriculture, industry, but also the service sectors and consumers. It is therefore necessary to bring education of the society into the focus,” claims A. Miceikienė.

As a result, in terms of the content, the conference consisted of several segments: agro-innovation and food technologies; biosystem engineering and environmental sustainability; multi-functional method of sustainable exploitation of biological resources; social research and innovations in bioeconomy, aimed at sustainable changes and wellbeing in rural areas.

During the conference, the world-renowned scholars such as Karlheinz Knickel, Germany, Davide Rizzo, France, Talis Tisenkopfs, Latvia, delivered their presentations at the Conference. More than 100 research evidence-based presentations were delivered in total at the conference on different relevant topics.

Congratulations on the beginning of the new academic year

Dear community of the Faculty,
Congratulations to everyone on Science and Knowledge Day, the beginning of new works and the continuation of existing ones. Let this academic year at our Bioeconomy Development Faculty be promising, exciting, contentful, developing science-based and knowledge-based being. Let us be curious, active members of the community, inspirers of sustainable activities for each other and creative solvers of new scientific, practical global problems. Good luck everyone!🍀

Dean prof. dr. Astrida Miceikienė

Visit to Foggia University

Assoc. Prof. Jolita Greblikaite has visited Fpggia University (Italy) under Erasmus+ learning mobility on 24-28 June, 2019. The cooperation between VDU Agriculture Academy and Foggia University is already lasting for some years. Coperation is based on common research in agriculture sphere, especially economics and management. During the visit new contacts were established according bioeconomy research as well as researchers from Foggia were invited to participate in our organised International scientific conference „Rural Development 2019: Bioeconomy Challenges“. Foggia ujiversity has leading scientists in bioeconomy business research.

Conference „New trends in management and production engineering – regional, cross-border and global perspectives”

On June 6-7 2019 assoc. prof. Jolita Greblikaite and lecturer Rolandas Rakstys (VMU Agriculture Academy, Faculty of Bioeconomy) were participating at 8th International Scientific conference „New trends in management and production engineering – regional, cross-border and global perspectives” at Brenna, Poland. Researchers presented were results in scientific research. They participated also in the meeting with the editors of sscietific journals cited in WoS Claritive Analytics and Scopus Databases.

Participation in Final Farm Demo Conference

Assoc. prof. dr. Anastasija Novikova from the Research Institute for Bioeconomy participated in Final Farm Demo Conference, which was held in Brussels on 21th of May, 2019. The conference was dedicated to present the result from three European projects funded under Horizon 2020: AgriDemo-F2F, PLAID and NEFERTITI. AgriDemo-F2F and PLAID focus on understanding the role of European commercial demonstration farms and prepare for more connectivity between actors involved in on-farm demonstrations. These projects develop a geo-referenced online inventory of demonstration farms and build an online FarmDemo-Hub community. The group of researchers from the Research Institute for Bioeconomy (prof. dr. Astrida Miceikiene, assoc. prof. dr. Anastasija Novikova and assoc. prof. dr. Bernardas Vaznonis) participated in PLAID projects’ activities making the national inventories of demonstration farms in Lithuania. NEFERTITI focuses on the establishment of 10 interactive thematic networks covering the 3 main agricultural sectors: animal production, arable farming and horticultural production. They bring together 45 regional hubs of demo-farmers and innovation actors – advisors, cooperatives, NGOs, industry, education, researchers and policy makers. The projects’ implementers hope that the output of AgriDemo-F2F and PLAID will be used as input to set up 3 annual campaigns of on-farm demonstrations. For more information about the projects, please visit https://farmdemo.eu/

COST ACTION SACURIMA meeting

The Agriculture Academy Faculty of Bioeconomy Development at Vytautas Magnus University held a meeting of Working Group 3 under the COST action CA16123 “Safety Culture and Risk Management in Agriculture“ (SACURIMA) and workshop “How to improve safety culture and risk management in vulnerable populations in agriculture?” on 25-26 April 2019.

Researchers and experts from Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Portugal, Turkey, Serbia, Estonia, Slovenia, Latvia, the U.S. attended the meeting and shared their experience and knowledge in the field of risk management and safety improvement in agriculture.

H. Birk Domino (SEGES, Denmark) presented the SACURIMA action and main dissemination activities performed until that day and presented the promotion videos made so far by the SACURIMA.

Dr. L. Girdziute and E Besuspariene (Vytautas Magnus University, Lithuania) presented detailed analysis of the pilot survey results on training and integration of vulnerable populations into the agricultural workforce to identify main issues in agricultural workforce and the effective models for training and integration of vulnerable populations into the agricultural workforce.

V. Kargytė (Vytautas Magnus University, Lithuania) presented the results of the study with the insights of student entrepreneurship from more than 50 countries. This was also related to graduates’ entrepreneurship in relation to agricultural activities. Health and safety issues are especially important for this vulnerable population which starts farming activities.

Dr. A. Ramos (Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha) made the presentation “Training and integrating vulnerable workers”. A global migration phenomenon was presented as well as seasonal and contracted agricultural workers in Europe. Main factors such as culture, language, fear and other factors, inadequate knowledge of labour rights and other factors were discussed. She also emphasized why H&S training does not usually work on farms, i.e. it sometimes does not meet the farmers’ needs, there is no leadership, or training methodology in not appropriate for the stakeholders (workers). She introduced the good practice examples partnering with a local farm to reduce worker back pain and injury and demonstrated the brochures how H&S information could be presented to workers by the means of picture dictionary for agriculture. Good practices for the promotion of OHS are: vocabularies for foreign speakers in the country they work, animated magazines, innovative training opportunities including radionovela, fotonovela, storytelling and others. Special focus should be on the vulnerable workers which change their lifestyle from urban to countryside and are not familiar with the risks, long working hrs. Effective models for teaching such as use of own data and communication in native language were also identified as very effective.

Representative of the consultation company SDG (Safe work guarantee) E. Garnytė presented Health and Safety legislation in Lithuania and main hazards in Agriculture (electrical, chemical, ergonomic, dusts, biological factors, weather conditions etc). She emphasized the specifics of agricultural activities, compared to other sectors and pointed the importance of H&S teaching in farms, especially for young workers, as their accident incidence rates are much higher than for other experienced workers.

Dr. E. Merisalu (The Institute of Technology, Estonia) presented the trends in the work related to accidents during previous decade in the EU. The results were presented together with the state of the art of agricultural production. The data was related to occupational accidents in the EU countries. She emphasized the importance of vulnerable workers who are usually not included to the statistical data. Therefore, collection of such information could help analyse deeper the situation. This is especially important in agriculture, forestry and fisheries, where incidence trends are increasing.

Dr. Achutan Chandran (Nebraska Medical Center) presented main results and the survey on the habits of use of personal protective equipment for the participants. The questionnaires were distributed in 4 countries and feedback received from the U.S., Slovenia, Latvia and Lithuania.

Dr. J. Leppala (Natural Resources Institute Finland, Finland) presented the worker management and orientation studies in Finland. Farmers’ perceptions of the required management skills were introduced, and farm safety and security management instruments as well as farm worker management and welfare at work in agriculture were presented. Key aspect of the presentation was to describe the definition “vulnerable population”.

Dr. G. Vasiliauskas (Vytautas Magnus University, Lithuania) presented the Lithuanian data related to prevalence of occupational diseases and accidents in agriculture. Statistical data were presented to show that incidence rate of fatal incidents is almost 6 times higher in agriculture than in other sectors of economic activity.

More discussions about vulnerably populations in agriculture and their safety issues were conducted at the Public Institution Practical Training and Trial Centre of Lithuanian University of Health Sciences (Center). SACURIMA members visited Center’s farm where milk production process safety regulations to ensure workers’ welfare were presented. During the farm visit, company’s “Pieno žvaigždės“ product range and their global supply routes were presented.

The main goal of this COST Action is to reduce the burden of work-related deaths, injuries and illnesses in agriculture.

This COST Action will produce benchmarked and evidence-based recommendations to inform and guide national initiatives and efforts. The results will be made available to the scientific community, policy makers, vocational training, administrative and insurance personnel, farmers and practitioners working towards better social sustainability and safety culture in agriculture.

Meeting in Copenhagen

VMU Academy of Agriculture assoc proc. dr. Jolita Greblikaite was participating at BSR Counsil Workshop on Bioeconomy organised on 9-10 May in Mm Denmark. At the meeting representatives from The Ministry of Agiculture were participating as well. It just emphasizes the importance of bioeconomy in Lithuania development. At the event the discussion about future of bioeconomy research and projects was held. Assoc. Prof. Dr. Jolita GReblikaite invited to participate in the 19th International Sceintific Conference „Rural Development 2019: Bioeconomy Challenges“, organised at September 26-28 at VDU Academy of Agriculture.

Participation in BBI JU Info Day 2019 in Brussels

Vice-dean of the Faculty of Bioeconomy Development assoc. prof. dr. Anastasija Novikova and Commertialization Manager of the Communication and Technology Transfer Center (CTTC) Asta Bendoraitytė participated at the Bio-based Industries Joint Undertaking (BBI JU) Info Day in Brussels, 12 April 2019. The event covered more than 500 participants. Into info day the special networking event for searching partners was included as well. The first part of the event was dedicated to present the Bio-based industries role in the global development of bioeconomy and to acquaint the participants with BBI JU’s Call priorities and novelties and shared the experience in writing a good BBI JU proposal. The next session was dedicated to build the network and find potential partners for the BBI JU Call for proposals. Networking meetings (15 minutes each) were organised in advance through the BBI JU Partnering Platform, meeting of interested participants following a meeting map with the designated meeting point were done. During B2B meetings VMU representatives presented scientific services and ongoing research projects for representatives of academy, consulting and business companies. The new possibilities to collaborate were discussed.

Intensive BOVA course for master students „Sustainable agriculture for rural development“

The Intensive BOVA course for master students „Sustainable agriculture for rural development“ is being organised by the Faculty of Bioeconomy Development for the fifth time. The aim of the course – to deepen and to expand students’ highly specialised knowledge in the field of sustainable agriculture and to develop students’ competencies required for solution of complex problems of rural development through agricultural multifunctionality. This year students from Latvian, Estonian, Finland and Norway universities were participating. Our university was represented by students from Nepal, Moldova and Nigeria.

Students had lectures with qualified teachers from Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia on the different issues of agricultural sustainability and rural development for three days, one day was given for the study tour. Students have presented the whole week works during the last day of the course.

Anastasija Novikova