AgriLink - Data Set on Suppliers of farm advice in 7 European countries

This Data Set is derived from the WP4 of the AgriLink project.

It is part of task T4.4 of Work Package (WP) 4 of the H2020 AgriLink project. AgriLink [Agricultural Knowledge: linking farmers, advisors and researchers to boost innovation] aims at better understanding the role of advisory services in farmers’ decision making and at boosting their contribution to innovation for sustainable development of agriculture. WP4 addresses more specifically the governance of farm advisory services. The objective of the research presented in this report is to understand the institutions that influence how farm advisory services function on the ground, and to discuss implications for the support for sustainable development innovation.

Data were collected in seven European countries: the Czech Republic, France, Greece, Poland, Portugal, Spain and the UK.

Data were collected for a diversity of types of innovation: Market, Technological, Process, and Social Innovation.

The Data set was built based on interviews with farm advisory suppliers.

In total 170 farm advisory suppliers were interviewed.

The table below provides the distribution of interviews according to countries.

The data has two aims.

First, to characterise farm advisory suppliers, in terms of (table below):

• what do they provide?
• Who is in control of the supplier?

Second, we have set a series of variables to characterise the services they provide. The main variables are:

• Number of advisors of the organisation

• Percentage of advisors in the staff of the organisation

• Share of back-office activities in the staff of the organisation

• Number of farmers client of the supplier per advisor

• Main advisory method

• Main funding source

More detailed information about the variables collected can be found in the questionnaire that is available in the appendix of the deliverable D4.2 of AgriLink