According to the 2012 data of EUROSTAT/ESAW for EU-28, agriculture occupies the 4th place (out of 22 NACE categories analyzed) in terms of number of both non-fatal and fatal accidents. Within the 5 project countries accidents' statistics published by their Labor Inspections show a worse picture, agriculture is in the top 3 contributors of non-fatal & fatal work accidents. Moreover when it comes to fatal accidents agriculture is the number one contributor (in Ireland with 23 cases in 2014), or in top 4 (Bulgaria, Romania, Greece and Spain). On the other hand the same statistics for occupational diseases are showing the same situation, agriculture occupies the 4th position within the pathologies producing sick leaves in EU-28 (EUROSTAT/ESAW).The specific objectives of the project are:1. To assess the Training Needs of specialists (safety experts & occupational physicians) providing OSH services & Occupational medicine services to the agriculture sector.2. To enhance the level of expertise (increasing their knowledge, skills, and attitude) for a number of 57 specialists (27 OSH experts & 30 Occ Med physicians).3. To increase the level of information for a community of 250 OSH experts & Occupational and physicians (but also other interested parties) active in the agriculture sector, and for 50 representatives of small farms as to specific training packages available (at the end of the project) in their countries.4. To enhance partners’ institutional capacity (in terms of training in the fields of OSH & Occ Med) so as to further impact VET and education systems in accommodating changes of their curricula and contents related to the envisaged fields.Therefore the project proposes as the main focus the development of related paraphernalia to two Training Courses, Course 1-decicated to OSH Experts and Course-2 dedicated to Occupational Physicians. They will be blended courses, face-to-face and e-learning, based on real company based Case Studies from 6 sub-sectors of agriculture. They will be teste through a series of transnational training organized in 3 countries and further proposed to the market of education and training providers.The Target Group (TG) of the project is made of 27 OSH experts from D1, D5, and D6 (providing OSH services to agriculture companies), and 30 occupational physicians from D1, D2, and D3, (providing occupational medicine services to agriculture companies). It also comprises 250 OSH experts and occ. physicians working in/with rural enterprises active in the agriculture sector, and 50 individual farmers.The impact foreseen for the project considers increased capacity building for the organizations involved due to the development of marketable outcomes (two training programs) and the networking and visibility gained with the project. There will also be increased level of expertise related to agricultural field, increased knowledge related to education & training requirements and related to means of knowledge transferability. There will be for the trained experts an increased competence an in terms of quality and appropriateness of OSH and Occ Med services provided to agricultural companies, as well as an increase of adaptability to European requirements due to the standardization of training among partner countries.The extensive dissemination activities will complete the image of the project by making use of extensive direct cooperation with European Networks such as ENWHP, ENETOSH and EASOM which are the main relevant network for these fields of action.
The project has been implemented successfully under the foreseen timeframe and it has achieved all its objectives. The initial number of partners was 6, Romtens Foundation (NGO-Romania), Foundation "Center for Safety and Health at Work" (NGO-Bulgaria), Prolepsis (NGO-Greece), WRC (LLC-Ireland), University of Medicine and Pharmacy Victor Babes Timisoara (Public University-Romania) and Andalusian Public Heath School (Public Administration-Spain). However right after the start of the project the Andalusian Public Heath School decided to withdraw from the project due to internal financial problems; this change has been formalized via the Addendum 1 at the Contract signed by Romtens Foundation with ANPCDEFP. Accordingly the tasks & the budget of the ex-partner were redistributed amongst the 5 remaining project partners. During the project there were performed the following main activities: 1. Organizing Transnational Project Meetings – there organized 5 such meetings (for more details see their descriptions). 2. Producing Intellectual Outputs – there were produced 7 intellectual outputs namely O1, O2, O3, O5, O6, O9, O10 (for more details see their descriptions). Of this 7 outputs only 6 were budgeted, O1 was not budgeted. It is important to mention that after the evaluation of the project proposal out of the initial number of 13 Intellectual Outputs the evaluator decided to leave only 6 of them, namely O2, O3, O5, O6, O9, O10. 3. Organizing learning activities – there were organized four learning activities: C1, C2, C3, C4 (for more details see their descriptions). 4. Organizing dissemination events – there were organized 4 dissemination events namely E1, E2, E3, E4 (for more details see their descriptions). In addition to these 4 budgeted events project representatives presented (oral presentations during conferences) the project results in other 6 dissemination events for a total audience of around 2800 experts in the fields of OSH, occupational medicine and agriculture. The main intangible achieved results of the project are the following: -Enhanced capabilities of the project partners as to assemble and deliver Occupational Medicine & OSH training courses. -Enhanced competences in the areas of occupational medicine and OSH across the four countries of the project (Romania, Bulgaria, Greece and Ireland). -Enhanced knowledge, skills and capacity for a total number of 58 experts; they are as follows: 14 OSH experts, 16 occupational medicine doctors, and 28 project partners’ staff (various professions – all involved in delivering training courses in the 2 domains). -Increased awareness of the relevant professional communities totalizing more than 3000 direct participants (OSH experts, occupational medicine doctors) on the most recent and advanced information concerning their domains (OSH and occupational medicine) for the agriculture sector. The project has been extremely well regarded by the professional communities in all 4 countries and its sustainability will be clearly a successful process since the e-learning platform attracts new users.