Agroecology for Farmers: The Linguistic Issue

Abstract

Agroecology means that agriculture is a part of ecological systems. Agroecology thus promotes biodiversity and support multicultural production. Farmers are benefiting from the digital revolution that allow access to agroecological knowledge. Although internet access to information resources is becoming less problematic, the issue of language barrier is particularly critical. This chapter therefore focuses on the need for farmers to access useful information, with focus on language barriers. The linguistic issue is addressed using the Organic.Edunet experience (www.organic-edunet.eu). Organic.Edunet is a learning portal that provides access to high-quality and trusted digital learning resources on organic agriculture and agroecology. These resources are used by students, teachers and farmers, as well as the general public interested in the subject. Organic.Edunet is used in this chapter as a use-case for analysing the benefit of truly multilingual portal in the agroecological field. Automated multilingual services introduced in the portal are described as well as the study of the analytics that shows the need to access information without the language barrier. A professional approach is described for demonstrating the benefit for farmers and teachers to use such thematic and multilingual portal. Then the importance of new content is mentioned to ensure the update of the information as well as the sustainability of such tools.