Innovations in grassland-based farms: focusing on the sources of inspiration for a better dissemination

Inno4Grass is the acronym for 'Shared Innovation Space for Sustainable Productivity of Grasslands in Europe'. This international and multi-actor project gathers farmers' organisations, extension services, and education and research institutions from eight EU countries with the aims of closing the gap between practice and science communities, and facilitating the adoption of innovations on grassland-based farms. In this paper, we describe the outcome of a survey carried out in Sardinia (Italy). Twenty innovative dairy farmers were interviewed face-to-face. A standardised questionnaire was used, based on both semi-open and open questions concerning the farm structure and management and the innovations adopted by farmers. The farm innovations covered different domains: production techniques, product processing and marketing. The most used source of inspiration for the adoption of innovations was the Internet. The knowledge about these potential farmers could be useful for researchers to build a more effective communication strateg y to disseminate innovations and increase the number of potential innovators