Educating adults about volunteering and organic food production on farm enterprises (EDVORG) is the focus of this partnership project with national organisations from ten European countries. It will develop and promote a Learning Guide as an online open educational resource (OER) for adult learners about organic food production, entrepreneurship, volunteering and cultural exchange on farm enterprises. The adults, especially 18-34 year olds, can then relate this online learning to practical residential work experience and informal learning on a range of small enterprises in different European countries. There are over 20,000 adults or "WWOOFers" (mainly 18-34 year olds) registered with the10 partner organisations who all support "working worldwide on organic farms" or WWOOF. There are also over 2,000 farm enterprises registered with the partners who are willing to offer practical learning opportunities to these adult volunteers. The WWOOFers learn informally as residential volunteers on host farm enterprises each year. However there is currently no free online education that can be offered to them about volunteering and organic food production on farm enterprises. The EU 2013 Indicators of Rural Development Report has shown that “the agricultural sector in the EU-27 is characterised by an ageing farming population", that “rural areas have the lowest share of lifelong learning” and lastly that “learning by doing is the main form of training for the majority of EU farmers”. So rural areas and farming in Europe needs to retain and attract young adults, build its lifelong learning and compliment the practical learning experience on farms with online learning. Linking this with the fact that “the agricultural area under organic farming (5.5%) in the EU continues to increase” is strong evidence of how vital online education about organic food production and cultural understanding is for young adults in rural areas. The Learning Guide will be freely available and usable online on an "open educational resource" for anyone who wants to learn about organic food production, sustainable lifestyles, rural entrepreneurship, cultural understanding and volunteering on farm enterprises. It will help any entrepreneur or cooperative to set up a new small farm/garden enterprise (singularly or cooperatively) based on organic food production, as well as enable people to learn how to volunteer, live and work on a farm enterprise in a responsible, sustainable, safe and healthy way. The Learning Guide will be a significant part of the future educational service of the partner organisations as they extend their workshops, courses, and collaboration with farm enterprises and educational centres. The future will look bright in rural areas of Europe if young adults educated in sustainable farming and ways of living can bring their youthfulness, innovation, cultural sensitivity and entrepreneurship to ageing and disadvantaged rural farming communities.
Context/background of the project; The Living and Learning on Organic Farms (LLOOF) project is about organic food production, entrepreneurship, volunteering and cultural exchange on farm enterprises. Farm volunteering is practical learning in an informal situation, undertaken in a hands on way. It aims to complement the volunteer's practical residential work experience and informal one-to-one learning offered by host farms in different European countries. It is for these farm volunteers before, during or after their visit to a host organic farm or smallholding. They may want to learn about sustainable diets and lifestyles, more formally about organic food production, or as potential food producers or processors. Objectives; The project has developed and promoted a Learning Guide as an online open educational resource (OER) for adult learners about organic food production, entrepreneurship, volunteering and cultural exchange on farm enterprises, so they can relate this to practical residential work experience and informal learning on a range of small enterprises in different European countries. Number and profile of participating organisations; All the ten partner organisations support, place and educate farm volunteers. They are all members of the Federation of WWOOF Organisations (FoWo) and support the values and principles of WWOOF – Worldwide opportunities on organic farms. Description of undertaken main activities; The project was started by analysing the needs of farm volunteers for learning more about organic farming. The surveyed farm volunteers helped us identify about 2,000 available and popular free online resources that they used. From these the project identified about 100 that would be more widely promoted through the project. The survey also identified videos as a popular media for learning about organic food, farming and lifestyles. So the project developed a YouTube Channel and some sample short videos to encourage more contributions. The survey, as well as a review of learning approaches and an analysis of over 200 farm skill competencies, helped to identify the most appropriate open educational resource website, which was eventually selected as Moodle rather than Canvas. A promotional conference in Italy in September 2015 and a full project launch in Ireland in May 2016 helped to develop and promote the project. The project has been very widely disseminated to the press, media, farm volunteering organisations and the 30,000 members of the 22 European WWOOF organisations. Results and impact attained; The main results were a downloadable guide, an OER website, a promotional website and a YouTube Channel. The free downloadable LLOOF Guide http://lloof.eu/static/guides.html (in 9 languages) introduces the farm volunteers to eleven basic topics ranging from working with hand tools, working with other people and healthy soil to growing organic crops, rearing organic livestock, and setting up your own starter enterprise. Each topic of 5 to 8 pages is only presented as text but has many weblinks to other sites and videos, rather like Wikipedia. The main sections for each topic include Introduction, Background (basic information, approaches and principles), Practice (the practical aspects on the farm), and Across Europe (the wide variety of farming). These are followed by a section on what WWOOF can offer to volunteers and then weblinks to a wide range of Organisations, Networks and Links. The Hands on section, in italic text, gives simple, short activities that could be done on the host farm by the volunteer. Lastly a range of practical skills are included in the Competencies section. The LLOOF Moodle site www.lloof.eu links to both the LLOOF Guide and the LLOOF YouTube Channel. It currently has short courses on farming systems, organic farming, volunteering and a few of the topics covered in the guide. It is hoped that farm volunteers and others will contribute to the course forums, making comments, adding case studies and photos. The LLOOF YouTube Channel http://video.lloof.eu currently has a few short films related to the topics in the Guide. It is hoped that farm volunteers and hosts will add to these films over the next few years demonstrating a range of farm skills and features across Europe. It also has a film introducing the project and a film to encourage volunteers to make short videos. If relevant, longer-term benefits. It will help all those who want to learn more about growing food organically and living more sustainably – an extension to the hands-on practical experience of volunteering, supported by experienced host farmers. However it is particularly written for the 30,000 or so adults (mainly under 30 years old) who volunteer each year to live and learn on organic farms and smallholdings across Europe.