RISE in action: How do digital tools help assess farm sustainability?
Sustainable agricultural development is essential to ensure long-term food security, protect natural resources and support rural communities. As agricultural systems come under increasing pressure from climate change, resource depletion and market demand, it is becoming increasingly important to assess the environmental, economic and social impacts of farming practices. Sustainability assessment allows farmers, researchers and policy makers to identify strengths, address weaknesses and make informed decisions for more sustainable and responsible food production.
On 7 May 2025, NUBiP of Ukraine hosted an international webinar “Practical Application of the RISE Tool for Assessing the Sustainability of Dairy Farms”, organised with the participation of the Association of Milk Producers and within the framework of the SULAWE-ERASMUS-EDU-2022-CBHE project. The event was attended by representatives of the academic community, teachers, students, young scientists and professionals from the agricultural sector. The event was opened with welcoming speeches by the Dean of the Faculty of Animal Husbandry and Aquatic Bioresources Ruslan Kononenko and the General Director of the Association of Milk Producers Hanna Lavreniuk, who emphasised the need to integrate sustainable practices into domestic animal husbandry. As part of the webinar, Andriy Getya introduced participants to the concept of sustainable agricultural production.
A key element of the event was the presentation of a case study – a sustainability analysis of the Yastrubchanske LLC industrial dairy farm using the RISE software product. Speakers Mykhailo Matveev (Senior Lecturer at the Department of Dairy and Meat Production Technologies at NUBiP) and Natalia Goncharova (Farm Manager) presented the results of the sustainability assessment of Yastrubchanske LLC using the RISE (Response-Inducing Sustainability Evaluation) software.
The final stage of the event was a discussion in which participants shared their own vision of the prospects for implementing sustainable technologies in agricultural production. Based on the results of the discussion, questions were formulated for the programme developers, the colleagues from Switzerland, which should be clarified for the further application of the programme in Ukraine.Holding such events is an important step towards increasing the educational potential in the field of sustainable agriculture in Ukraine.
