Across Europe, farmers continuously develop knowledge about sustainable farming through their daily work with soil, biodiversity, crop diversity, and climate adaptation.
There is no shortage of knowledge. What might be missing is its movement – from farm to farm, across regions and across borders – so that best practices do not remain where they originate: in local practices and in the hands of individual farmers.
The Crop-MATCHING project addresses exactly this: identifying and collecting sustainable farming practices from across Europe. This includes mapping and assessing the most effective approaches currently in use and sharing them with small-scale farmers and stakeholders all over the continent.
However, simply sharing knowledge is not enough. Much of the information shared today is never opened, never read, never used – newsletters left unopened, content disappearing in a split-second scroll – and never translated into value, let alone action. The production or mere publication of information is not the same as making it matter.
This is where listening becomes essential – and curiosity. It is not sufficient to define a target audience or work with demographics; it requires understanding farmers in their real, lived context, with their own priorities. A farmer in Italy is not necessarily concerned with soil conditions in Poland, but with their own farm, their own business, and the economic, political, and climatic conditions that shape it. Making knowledge useful therefore requires a highly specific understanding of that reality – and the ability to translate it into something directly applicable.
This also applies to the translation of scientific knowledge. For information to be used, it must be adapted to the needs, language, and context of different audiences – from farmers to public authorities, consumers, and food companies. Within Crop-MATCHING, this is reflected in the development of targeted information packages, designed to make complex knowledge accessible, relevant, and applicable for each stakeholder group.
Knowledge can move on its own, but it takes time and remains unpredictable. In practice, behavior and knowledge are shaped and shared within communities characterized by high levels of identification. Reducing the distance between farmers therefore becomes a task in itself: creating a sense of shared practice, where experiences from Norway or Turkey do not feel distant, but recognisable. When farmers see each other facing similar challenges and making similar decisions, knowledge exchange shifts from something abstract and external to something personal and relevant. It becomes a matter of “people like me” – rather than “others somewhere else.”
Small-scale farmers do not choose their profession out of indifference – to their fields, their crops, or the natural systems they depend on. It is a field defined by commitment, experience, and a high level of expertise.
This is both the challenge and the potential of the Crop-MATCHING project. If the knowledge offered is not made relevant, it will most likely be disregarded. If it is, it will be recognised and used – and everyone will benefit as a result.