Community supported agriculture (CSA) is a partnership between farmers and the local community, in which the responsibilities, risks and rewards of farming are shared. CSA has been coined and implemented autonomously by active citizens committing to local farms in many countries in Europe. CSA models provide access to markets for family farmers, and have already proved effective in creating new jobs, closely interconnected with local communities and the environment. The CSAct ! purpose is to address the CSA members' and farmers' needs and to facilitate the spread of CSA initiatives by the transmission of knowledge, skills and competences from experienced stakeholders to local communities. Even though each partner organisation has already been advocating for CSA and creating spaces for experience-sharing, these activities have remained focused on basic knowledge. Now is the time for a structured educational path for CSA: CSAct! is a European collaborative training programme based on the experience gained from a previous Erasmus+ project (“Be part of CSA!”) and relying on the 2016-17 survey in the 6 partner countries and beyond. Urgenci and its partners will enhance and extend the CSA European training offer, reframing the core training curriculum and deploying new materials. A new focus on CSA farmers and Economic stability will be given to ensure the long-term sustainability of CSA. Partners from CSAct! will also develop an ambitious e-learning strategy. The "CSAct!" project is built on three main pillars: • To expand the European core training program on CSA by: 1) tailoring a modular training to the specific needs of new contexts (Italy, Spain, Greece and Poland), 2) enhancing educational materials, with a focus on CSA farmers and the profitability of CSA farms, and developing e-training capsules in accordance with the modular propositions ; 3) running, evaluating and improving the advanced program. • To assure the dissemination and the accessibility of the training program to various communities by: 1) building expert capacity for staff and multiplicators through a demanding mentoring process ; 2) making the training program accessible on the European level, implementing a digital learning strategy and organizing vibrant local and international multiplier events. • To ensure its long-term sustainability, partners will build and consolidate new alliances at local and international levels. 50 adult learners will engage in the training activities, mostly CSA farmers and future multiplicators. More than 120 active participants, farmers and consumers, will attend local multiplier events on CSA (as we hope most of them will participate in the two sessions). At least 70 and up to 140 European CSA members are expected at the international dissemination event in Greece. List of intellectual outputs: O1: Improve the modular core training programme, adapting and upgrading the training modules 1 to 4: Theoretical background of and practice of CSA; Starting a CSA initiative; Maintaining a CSA initiative and Field training; O2: Create a “Module 5 “on CSA Economic sustainability – Basics for sound CSA farms and groups; O3: Work on a Farmer-to-Farmer Extension, with a "CSA farmer booklet"; O4: Develop a "Strategy for CSA Knowledge transfer" toolkit; O5: Implement a digital learning strategy for CSA; List of Multiplier events: E1-4: Implementing the core educational CSA training programme in 4 countries (IT, ESP, GR and POL); E5-9: Advanced CSA Course (with module 5) in 5 countries (IT, ESP, GR, POL and HU); E10: International Multiplier Event in Greece (December 2018). Lists of transnational training activities: C1: Farmer-to-Farmer Training Event in January 2018 (IT); C2: Train the trainers Event in March 2018 (HU.) Our project provides an innovative European training programme of 5 modules. This modularity is essential to allow flexible participation for individual learners and the combination of contents. It makes it possible to tailor the training content to the exact needs of the target groups and allows the participation of both the knowledgeable and the beginners. Peer learning methods will ensure the learner-focused methodology that empowers adult learners to make commitments and form and maintain CSA communities. The development and dissemination of an extended CSA educational programme at the European level was already a key goal of the "Be part of CSA!" project; the CSAct! ambition is to go one step further. It aims to design a unique learning opportunity enhancing the development and sustainability of small-scale organic agriculture: beyond lifelong learning targets, CSAct ! contributes to inclusive and solidarity-based European societies. Indeed, the democratic model of CSA communities is one of the key elements of the educational process project partners want to build together: it is a bottom-up, participatory development process in which farmers and citizens take centre stage.
The overall goal of “CSAct!, a Community -Supported Agriculture collaborative training programme”, was to enhance and to extend the offer of CSA training programmes to European CSA members and farmers. This included simplifying the core training curriculum and deploying new materials, with a wide range of training opportunities and activities, in order to facilitate the spread of CSA initiatives by transmitting knowledge, skills and competences from experienced stakeholders and organisations to local communities. This overall goal was declined into 3 different key objectives. The first major objective was to upgrade the core European CSA training program, developed in the frame of a previous project called Be Part of CSA. The training materials have been tailored to Italian, Spanish, Greek and Polish contexts, and have also been improved, with the creation of both a farmer-to-farmer booklet and a new training module on the Financial Sustainability of CSA. The second objective was to expand the outreach of the training programme to new CSA communities. This has been done through multiple test training sessions, with gender balance and a high level of representation of farmers and youth. A new generation of “CSA multipliers” have been successfully trained and equipped with the right mentoring tools (incl. the knowledge transfer kit). Additionally, the outreach has also been expanded through the use of digital tools, that comprise the first ever international series of webinars on CSA and the creation of a Hub, e.g. a e-learning platform offering a diversity of pedagogical contents (tutorial videos, webinar recordings, booklet, modules...). The third objective was to build and consolidate new alliances at local and international level. This was achieved through 2 different channels. First, through an improved cooperation with network members, other NGOs and policy makers, at all different levels of action: municipal, provincial, national, European and international. Second, the 3rd objective was completed thanks to awareness raising through social media and mainstream communication channels (national TV and radio broadcasts). The project focused primarily on what is sometimes called the European CSA community, which includes all the stakeholders willing to engage, or are already engaged, with CSA: farmers, consumers, network staff.