We have a series of talks covering examples of farmer-led citizen science in the UK and elsewhere in Europe, with time for discussion about the opportunities and challenges.
The topic is focused on farmers and environmental monitoring in farming, not farmland in general. There is a lot of citizen science connected with farmland, but the distinctive angle of this meeting is farmers doing citizen science, because this could present new opportunities as well as specific challenges.
The intended audience is practitioners interested in working with farmers (government agencies, NGOs, including farming-focused organisations, and so on). Farmers themselves are not the intended audience for this particular meeting, although the meeting is anyone who is interested.
What is citizen science in this context? Two characteristics that are important when considering citizen science and farmers is that taking part is voluntary (i.e. not mandated by government) and it provides mutual benefit for the participant (e.g. the farmer gains data on their local environment) and for science/research/decision-making at a broader scale.
