Bord Bia

Summary

Aurion Learning partnered with Bord Bia, to develop the Farm Sustainability Learning Hub - an online training platform aimed at educating and upskilling Irish farmers on sustainable agricultural practices.

About Bord Bia

Bord Bia, the Irish Food Board, is the government agency responsible for the promotion and marketing of Ireland’s Food, Drink and Horticulture industry both within Ireland and across the world, thereby enabling the growth and sustainability of its producers.

The Challenge

Bord Bia is a key player in the agriculture sector's aim to decrease carbon emissions by 25% by 2030. While Irish farmers have made strides in boosting farm sustainability, as evidenced by reduced carbon intensity since Bord Bia initiated carbon footprinting in 2011, the agency's surveys revealed farmers desired more guidance to continue their sustainability progress.

Bord Bia's flagship ‘Origin Green’ programme is the world's only national-level sustainability programme uniting farmers, producers, processors and retailers towards a better future for all. In addition to the standards set out by the Sustainable Assurance Scheme’s, the Origin Green team wanted to provide their farmer members with additional opportunities/guidance to increase the sustainability of their farms in a number of areas, such as biodiversity, water quality, farm emissions and animal welfare.

The Objective

The primary objective was to create a central online learning hub to further support farmers in adopting sustainable practices, track participation in sustainability training, and provide guidance on improving environmental, social and economic sustainability. Additionally, Bord Bia wanted to develop eLearning modules to help support companies and farmers in becoming more sustainable, as outlined in the government's Food Vision 2030 Strategy.

Built on the award-winning LearnUpon LMS, the Learning Hub enables Bord Bia to efficiently scale its sustainability training approach to large numbers of users across Ireland's agriculture sectors. As an extended enterprise solution, it provides robust reporting for compliance, unique logins for individual learners and admin access for Bord Bia staff. 

The Approach 

Aurion collaborated closely with Bord Bia's subject matter experts and industry partners to create an evidence-based, learner-centric curriculum, utilising: 

• Real-world scenarios mirroring common challenges farmers face. 
• Practical application exercises allowing skills practice. 
• Case studies and testimonials from actual Irish farmers.
• A focus on behavioural outcomes needed to improve sustainability. 

Following our proprietary IMPACT instructional design model, the modules define benefits for the learner, establishing contextual relevance, providing ample opportunities to apply the knowledge, and delivering meaningful feedback. 

To consolidate the extensive expertise from Bord Bia’s numerous subject matter experts into cohesive courses, Aurion employed a lean content development process. This involved creating detailed templates and guidelines for Bord Bia’s SMEs to effectively outline the scope, sequence, and specifics of their modules' content, which could then be efficiently translated into compelling eLearning content. 

The accessible online training has empowered farmers with sustainability knowledge, actionable strategies, and a roadmap for continuous improvement in reducing emissions and environmental impact.

Overall, the digital learning resources created by Aurion Learning have helped Bord Bia achieve its goals of promoting sustainability within the supply chain and enhancing Ireland’s reputation as a green food-producing country.

Looking ahead, Bord Bia plans to further extend the impact across the industry by integrating the eLearning portal and content into its new Producer Standard auditing scheme, launching in 2026. They plan to continue collaborating with food processors on tailored company courses and make the Farm Sustainability training a core component of the agri-digital platform, ‘AgNav’.

The success of this initiative was further highlighted when it was recognised with a Brandon Hall Gold Award for ‘Best Extended Enterprise Learning Programme’ in 2024. This project successfully showcases Aurion Learning’s ability to deliver bespoke LMS solutions that help achieve both organisational goals and industry-wide impact.