The Regional Chamber of Agriculture of Occitania, in partnership with Chambres d’agriculture France, organized the annual general meeting of i2connect. It took place at the Village by Crédit Agricole (an incubator for innovative companies) on 22 and 23 September 2022. The event brought together almost 50 partners from 18 European countries. The partners come from agricultural advisory bodies, research institutes, universities, technical institutes, and training organizations. At the French level, the Association des Chambres d’agriculture de l’Arc Atlantique, IDELE and IFV were present.

The i2connect project aims to increase the skills of agricultural and forestry advisors in the support of multi-actor innovation projects, which we call interactive innovation in the project. This increase in skills is achieved through various actions: the creation of a European network of advisors who can exchange on their profession and innovation project, resourcing via exchanges of practices during meetings in the partner countries and the training of advisors in interactive innovation project management.

Partners present at the General Assembly
Village By CA, Toulouse

Working group reflecting on the different key stages of the « GIEE Arbonovateur » project
Tarn-et-Garonne

During the general assembly, the participants worked for two days on all aspects of the project:

  • During the day of Thursday 22 September: after a morning dedicated to the progress of the different actions of the project, the financial aspect, and the presentation of the AKIS Occitan network, the partners went to our territories to discover interactive innovation projects carried out by the Chambers and their partners. We worked with advisors and farmers from the GIEE Sols vivants en Comminges led by Carole Merienne from the CA31, the GIEE Arbonovateur led by Jean-François Larrieu from the CA82 and the Vignobles 3.0 project led by the IFV and presented by Christophe Gaviglio from the IFV
  • Friday gave way to co-construction workshops on communication within and outside the project, the transfer of project results, the database of agricultural advisors mandated by the European Commission and the training of trainers, advisors and managers organized in the framework of i2connect. This work allowed to establish the perspectives and the actions to be carried out for the last two years of the project.

Partners at the general also had the time to socialize and have informal exchanges at the different social events organised by the Occitanie Regional Chamber of Agriculture.