SUSTAINOLIVE en la radio. Belén Fernández, investigadora del IRTA, socio del proyecto.
October 7, 2020
Travel to Morocco of the team from the University of Jaén and Tekieroverde to meet our SUSTAINOLIVE partners
October 16, 2020
On September 29, and within the framework of the 2nd International Meeting of the SUSTAINOLIVE project, the advances in work package 6 were presented. Dr. Gema Parra Anguita develops her work in the Department of Animal Biology, Plant Biology and Ecology of the University of Jaén. Gema Parra belongs to the Ecology and Biodiversity of Aquatic Systems research group (RNM300), and is part of the scientific committee of the Center for Advanced Studies in Earth Sciences (CEACTierra).
During these first 15 months, task 6.1 of the project was carried out, which consisted mainly in the creation and implementation of a questionnaire aimed at identifying the barriers that farmers must face when carrying out sustainable agricultural practices in which the majority of SUSTAINOLIVE partners.
After testing and modifying the questionnaire, at the end of May it was ready to be used and sent to the different partners. The final version was used during the spring and summer of 2020, with 20 items referring to the opinion of farmers on the barriers in the implementation of Sustainable Technology Solutions (STS), such as political support, economic disadvantage, lack of training and their environmental concern (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Factor affecting STSs implementation
Despite COVID_19, we obtained 167 participants, 68 questionnaires from Greece and 99 from Spain. In the future, we will have additional questionnaires from other countries to improve the sample size. In summary, and as sociodemographic information, we can say that more than 80% were men, more than 40% have a higher education level, and young people, under 40 years of age, represent 35% of the sample (Figure 2).
Figure 2. Participants demographic information
The data analysis tells us that the significant factorial structure of the questionnaire was made up of 3 factors:
- Factor 1. Lack of political support
- Factor 2. Lack of education and training
- Factor 3. Environmental concern
Considering the responses that the farmers gave us in each factor, we can assume that the three factors constitute a kind of barriers / handicap or facilitator in the use of STS (Figure 3).
Figure3. Factors mean values.
With this questionnaire we obtained relevant results with interest in future actions within the project and the rest of the tasks. For example, younger farmers encountered fewer barriers to implementing sustainable practices. In addition, people with a lower educational level found more barriers to implement practices and women reported higher values in the factors, which we interpreted as that they encountered more barriers.
Some interesting results emerged when comparing data from different countries. We found significant differences in the way the Spanish and Greek respondents value factor 1 (political support) and factor 2 (lack of training), although both consider both factors as a barrier. We could summarize that in Spain the farmer claims to have more political support while in Greece, the farmer feels he needs more training (Figure 4).
Figure 4. Comparing countries in factor 1 and 2.
One of our future tasks is related to the creation of a participatory platform, which will be a progressive web application that will allow our users and partners to be part of the SUSTAINOLIVE community.
Finally, we would like to invite all olive growers to fill out the attached questionnaire to improve our results.
Figure 4. Comparing countries in factor 1 and 2.
One of our future tasks is related to the creation of a participatory platform, which will be a progressive web application that will allow our users and partners to be part of the SUSTAINOLIVE community.
Finally, we would like to invite all olive growers to fill out the attached questionnaire to improve our results.
Figure 4. Comparing countries in factor 1 and 2.
One of our future tasks is related to the creation of a participatory platform, which will be a progressive web application that will allow our users and partners to be part of the SUSTAINOLIVE community.
Finally, we would like to invite all olive growers to fill out the attached questionnaire to improve our results.
You can send the questionnaires to this email: gparra@ujaen.es
