ECSA’s Agri-food Wοrking Group held its first face-to-face meeting in Paris on June 28-29, 2023. This 2-day meeting was hosted by the French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment (INRAE). The meeting was attended by 14 members of the Agri-food WG who engaged in fruitful discussions on citizen science in the agri-food sector.
Meeting hosts and WG co-chairs, Marco Barzman, Petra Benyei and Gerid Hager, organised the event in a way for the team to share their experiences and expertise in the field. The meeting was launched with an informal presentation of participants, while INRAE researchers, Sandra Deney and Guy Richard, shared their work on crowdsourcing and participation of non-academics in agri-food citizen science projects respectively.
During the first day, the team working on the literature review on agri-food citizen science projects presented the progress made so far, while an overview of the padlet-based collection of agri-food initiatives was given before the group. The day was closed with a dinner with view of the Eiffel Tower, followed by a leisurely walk to the Eiffel Tower, Trocadéro and Allée des Cygnes.
On the second day, members engaged in a co-writing workshop that encouraged them to reflect on the Ten Principles of Citizen Science and to adapt them in an agri-food-oriented perspective. Participants worked in pairs on each of the ten principles and submitted their ideas in a collaborative document that will form the basis for a future publication of the working group. The meeting was concluded with the identification of upcoming steps and participants’ renewed commitment to the group activities.
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Authors: Stefania Oikonomou and Katerina Zourou
