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Adult training course for small farmers on ecological and urban agriculture

Funder: European CommissionProject code: 2018-1-BG01-KA204-047888
Funded under: ERASMUS+ | Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices | Strategic Partnerships for adult education Funder Contribution: 134,161 EUR

Adult training course for small farmers on ecological and urban agriculture

Description

Urban agriculture (UA) represents a growing movement toward transforming vacant lots, backyards, and even rooftops into productive green spaces. As such the urban agriculture has the potential to offer a wealth of benefits. Like any urban green space, urban farms and gardens can help improve air quality, moderate temperatures, and reduce storm water runoff. For many inner-city residents, urban farms and gardens may also be the only places where they can regularly experience nature. The majority of people today live in urban environments, and it is estimated that future population growth will be concentrated in urban areas of less developed countries. Urban agriculture has been drawing a lot of attention recently for several reasons: the majority of the world population has shifted from living in rural to urban areas; the environmental impact of agriculture is a matter of rising concern; and food insecurity, especially the accessibility of food, remains a major challenge. UA has often been proposed as a solution to some of these issues, for example by producing food in places where population density is highest, reducing transportation costs, connecting people directly to food systems, and using urban areas efficiently. However, to date, no study has examined how much food could actually be produced in urban areas on a global scale. Overall, the space required is regrettably the highest where UA is most needed, i.e., in countries like Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey where a considerable percentage of the population has poor income. We also show that smaller urban clusters (i.e., <100 km2 each) together represent about two-thirds of the global urban extent; thus UA discourse and policies should not focus on large cities exclusively, but should also target smaller urban areas that offer the greatest potential in terms of physical space. Our project developed a training curriculum, training videos, training course for adults (aged 18+), who are interested to explore ecological urban agriculture either to produce their own food, to sell the product to small outdoor markers, or as part of their activities during their spare time/hobby. The training materials are provided via e-learning portal and two mobile applications for Android and iOS mobile devices. The following indicators were achieved: INDICATOR 1: Knowledge and good practice widely spread among adult educators on national and EU level INDICATOR 2: Spread of innovative approaches from country to country and their integration into common practice INDICATOR 3: Participants as learning communities became aware and exploited the project deliverables • Number of involved representatives of the adult educators - 1295 • Number of visitors - 5450 visitors • Number of educational institutions which are using the project resources - 32 institutions in total for the project. • Number of involved representatives of policy makers and systematic level gatekeepers - 87 on national levels + 12 on EU level. • Increased percentage of the increased number of stakeholders who have been attracted to use the app resources by the end of the piloting phase influenced by the results of their adult peers who have participated. INDICATOR 4: Active participation (including time availability) of project stakeholders and gatekeepers At the end of the project realisation, we may conclude on the reached impact:Those trained by the project are able to achieve better realisation on the market, where we expect an increase of the employment rate on local and regional levels in the next months. The project results were tested with illiterate, low qualified and low skilled people as well as NEETs. We helped them to acquire new knowledge, skills and competences as well as to have better chances for realisation in the labour market and to achieve better inclusion in the society. We covered the learning gap in terms of lack of provision of Adult education training materials in the field of ecological and urban agriculture. We supported the stabilisation of the eco-farming sector by increasing the number of potential newly established micro SMEs in this sector in Bulgaria. We achieved further strengthening of the capacity building of our organisation, which led to further extension of our staff’ competences, communication and team working abilities to cooperate with other colleagues on an EU level. The ECO-AGRI curriculum supported the National plan for the development of the agricultural sector in Bulgaria. This output improved the Adult training opportunities for existing adult educators, which received up-to date training materials provided via blended learning facilitation (platform and two mobile application – for Android and for iOS mobile devices). Overall the post impact after the realized training is definitely leading to an improved quality of the production of urban agriculture, which will support better health conditions of the entire society.

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