Farming has a big influence on Europe's landscapes and the quality of its environment. The loss of traditional farming practice to intensive agriculture throughout the EU has led to: soil erosion, water pollution, over-exploitation of water resources the loss of biodiversity (semi-natural habitats, wild species) pesticide-born damage and risks for human health. Agroforestry is defined as a land-use system where trees (or other woody vegetation) are grown in association with agricultural crops or livestock on the same land. This combination increases the diversity of agricultural production, reduces the dependence of farmers on monocultures and brings a lot of important environmental services (reduction of soil erosion, conservation of water, maintenance of soil fertility, biodiversity conservation etc.). Agroforestry enables to bring solutions to different issues such as income diversification, unemployment and ecological services. Agroforestry goes beyond agriculture and forestry. This agricultural system provides a wide range of services, enabling to contribute to sustainable and inclusive growth, to climate change mitigation and adaptation and to the delivery of raw materials. Most importantly, agroforestry helps achieve the goals of the Common Agriculture Policy of the EU (CAP), namely the shift towards a low carbon and resilient economy in agriculture. Furthermore, agroforestry leads to diversify income and increase productivity. Agroforestry practices can serve as a zone of transition that helps people and communities "reconnect" with agriculture. The main reason for implementing this project transnationally is because agroforestry could help achieve the goals of the CAP of the EU. AGFOSY project needs to be carried out transnationally because it addresses objectives set at the European level. Our proposal is mainly focused on continental North and Central Europe (from climatic point of view) and it searches for new systems that would fit or help to solve specific East-European heritage of collectivization - large fields, de-arborisation of landscapes etc. Carrying out this project transnationally has wide range of benefits for all participants and target groups, as it contributes to the exchange of good practices among the different agroforestry systems in different countries. The main goal of the proposed project is to develop a complex but simultaneously flexible training system for agroforestry, based on the collection of a number of case studies and good agroforestry practices from several countries with similar agricultural structure, but different agroforestry practices. Other farmers and peasants can be inspired and learn new practical techniques of planting trees on farmland through those practical examples. This system should provide farmers with knowledge and skills that will assist them in implementing various agroforestry systems into practice. The primary target group of the project are farmers and peasants. People who do not have the appropriate knowlege and skills in this regard and expressed previous significant interest (in undertaken survey) to participate in such a training focused on the issue of agroforestry systems and its implementation on farm. The AGFOSY Training system that we will develop in our project will include: - the Summary Report of the current state of the art of the agroforestry systems (O1), - 30 Case Studies (O2), - Methodological Sheets for Establishement and Management Appropriate Agroforestry Practices (O3), - Study Materials for Students and Lesson Plans for Lecturers (O4) - and Short Educational Movies (O5).
Farming has nowaday even bigger influence on Europe's landscapes and environment than in the past. Intensive agriculture and severing ties throughout the EU has led to many different problems: - climate change which is more visible than it was, - soil erosion, - water pollution, - overuse of water resources, - significant loss of biodiversity, - overusing of pesticides. Agroforestry could be an answer to all mentioned problems. Agroforestry is a practice of a land-use system where trees (or other woody vegetation) are grown in association with agricultural crops or livestock on the same land. The role of agroforestry in integrating trees with crops and animals is a long-standing tradition throughout the world. Today, agroforestry appears to be an important part of the alternatives capable of promoting the transition to the more sustainable production of food. We believe that agroforestry is able to bring solutions to different issues such as income diversification, unemployment, and ecological services. Agroforestry goes beyond agriculture and forestry. This agricultural system provides a wide range of services, enabling it to contribute to sustainable and inclusive growth, climate change mitigation and adaptation, and the delivery of raw materials. Most importantly, agroforestry helps achieve the goals of the Common Agriculture Policy of the EU (CAP), namely the shift towards a low carbon and resilient economy in agriculture. Furthermore, agroforestry leads to diversify income and increase productivity. Agroforestry practices can serve as a zone of transition that helps people and communities "reconnect" with agriculture. The main reason for the international implementation of the AGFOSY project was that agroforestry can help achieve the objectives of the EU CAP and address the objectives set centrally at the European level. The implementation of this project internationally had a wide range of benefits for all participants and target groups, as it contributed to the exchange of best practices between different agroforestry systems in different countries. The main aim of the AGFOSY project was to develop a flexible training system for agroforestry. This training system was based on the collection of case studies and good agroforestry practices from a number of European countries with similar agricultural structures, but different agroforestry practices. Farmers can find at AGFOSY training materials inspiration on how to start with agroforestry, how to maintain agroforestry, how to take care of it, and where to look for a piece of advice. Overall we can say that the AGFOSY training system should provide farmers with the necessary knowledge and skills that assist them in implementing various agroforestry systems into practice. The primary target group of the project was farmers and peasants. Before the project started we found out in the Research that these people did not have the appropriate knowledge and skills and expressed significant interest to participate in such training focused on the issue of agroforestry systems and their implementation on farms. The AGFOSY training system that we developed in our project included: - the Summary Report of the current state of the art of the agroforestry systems (O1), - 34 various Case Studies from all partnership countries (O2), - 12 Methodological Sheets for Establishment and Management Appropriate Agroforestry Practices (O3), - 10 Study Materials for Students and Lesson Plans for Lecturers (O4), - 7 Short Educational Movies (O5), - Platform where all the materials can be found, used and downloaded (O6). During the whole project implementation, we not only developed our main outputs but we also focused these type of activities: - we carried out of dissemination of project results, project news, - we organized project meetings for the project partners, - we organized final events in all partner countries - and at least we did pilot testing of the developed materials which provided us valuable feedback. The main objectives which we set up before the project started we achieved. We prepared all materials of the educational system which we intended to prepare and all these materials are free for use in six European languages: in Czech, in English, in French, in Hungarian, in Slovakian, and in Spanish. Participants of our project were mainly: - farmers, - agricultural experts, - specialists on the topic of agroforestry, - university teachers, - students.