Prevention of Water Contamination from Point Sources with Plant Protection Products by Improving Extension Specialists' Vocational Competences

Project summary

Best Management Practices-BMPs (in transport,storage, filling, cleaning and remnant management of PPPs) those support to decrease PPPs contamination in waters by point sources. The aim of the ProtectLife project is firstly to develop an original BMPs to prevent water contamination with PPPs by point sources and secondly to improve competences of extension agricultural engineers who are target group of the project work in Ministry’s Provincial and District Directorates by using these BMPs. The agricultural engineers are responsible to pass on the information to farmers how to use pesticides correctly and safely. For this purpose, the methods and practices carried out successfully in EU is going to be implement to Turkey by considering national needs. The consortium in the project consists of 8 partners including coordinator those are; Directorate of Plant Protection Central Research Institute (ZMMAE) as coordinator, Research Institute of Horticulture from Poland (INHORT), Agro-Environmental Research Institute from Hungary and Research Center for Studies of Food and Agricultural Products Quality (NARIC), University of Agronomical Sciences and Veterinary Medicine–Bucharest from Romania (USAMV), International Agricultural Training Center (UTEM), Ankara University Faculty of Agriculture Department of Agricultural Machine and Technology Engineering (AU TMTM), Ministry’s Food And Control Department of Plant Production Products (GKGM-BKUDB) that has the authority to prepare and inspect all the legislations in Turkey, The Turkish Association of Agricultural Machinery & Equipment Manufacturers (TARMAKBIR). Within the project, innovative BMPs for Turkey will be generated to prevent water contamination with PPPs in spraying applications. These BMPs will be harmonized to EU scale as much as possible and unique training materials for the target group will be developed. These training materials are BMPs Handbook, BMPs Tutor book, four video films and four animations that have original scripts. All the activities will be planned and organized at meetings that kick off, three transnationals, closing and eight steering committee meetings. A kick off meeting will be organized to recognize and confirm official capacities, tasks packages, time plan and cooperation between partners. Three transnational meetings will be organized to possess knowledge and experiences of foreign partners. Furthermore, an evaluation will be made in closing meeting to review and finalize project final report with attendance of all partners. A web site contains all the materials of the project will be designed to supply sustainability of project. A mobile application will be prepared to pass through BMPs outputs to the target group. This application will also have made possible to monitor whether engineers in extension service follow BMPs steps on pesticide applications or not. The mobile application will be able to transfer to other EU partners. A pilot training activity will be organized for 50 agricultural engineers in extension service who are on duty in Ministry in Eğirdir, Meriç-Ergene and Menderes catchment areas. Training materials will be integrated with in-service trainings those performs by Ministry annually to improve competences of target group and will be reachable for many other agricultural engineers after the project ends. In the long term, farmers will be trained by target group whose competencies are increased and the outputs of the project will be used for in-service training of other extensional agricultural engineers by Ministry. A workshop will be organized with attendance of all partners and stakeholders to disseminate project results and increase multiplier effect of the project. Two field days will be organized for the farmers in the farmland surrounding of Eğirdir lake and Meriç-Ergene basin where have important in terms of the water sources and problem of the water pollution with PPPs. The project outputs will be presented at Turkey’s most well-attended fairs. In addition, radio and tv programs, bulletins and magazines, seminars will be realized to disseminate of the project.