BloomEra

European farms are being asked to do more with less: cut inputs, protect soils and biodiversity, and still deliver reliable incomes. Yet current cropping systems struggle to keep pace with climate change and to implement agriculture, forestry, and rural policies. Farmers need to upgrade systems by adopting practices proven in EU projects and Operational Groups that enhance resilience, raise incomes, and align with policies. BloomEra fills this gap by helping farmers and AKIS actors apply practices such as agroforestry, relay/strip cropping, intercropping, rotations, climate-smart practices, and precision farming, making systems more resilient and profitable. It moves from scattered know-how to ready-for-practice solutions. The idea was shaped through the consortium’s participation in EU projects and OGs and direct meetings with farmers, where their needs were systematically recorded & analysed. BloomEra rests on three pillars: (1) collecting, analysing, and delivering farm-ready knowledge on innovative cropping systems; (2) leveraging 12 case studies to inspire and train stakeholders while co-creating tailored solutions with 12 farmer groups; (3) providing training, dissemination, and communication to support adoption, enabling farmers to access new value chains, increase income, and strengthen resilience. Collaboration with ~10 OGs will ensure joint activities and policy outputs. BloomEra will connect >240 farmers through 36 meetings, organise >30 training activities (demo days, courses, cross-fertilisation events), and deliver 18 factsheets, 18 playbooks with cost-benefit analyses, 18 practice abstracts, 16 videos, and a multilingual website/platform (9 languages, automatic translation) as a knowledge hub with three digital tools. The platform will remain active for at least five years beyond project end and link to EU-FarmBook and AKIS projects such as ModernAKIS. Social diversity (gender, age) will be integrated in all dissemination activities.