In the European context of reducing the use of conventional pesticides (“Pesticide Package”), biocontrol (use of natural products for pest and disease management), is a very promising alternative. Market of biocontrol products is indeed showing a significant increase and several dozens of new products are expected in the European market within 5 years. However, despite this rapid change in agricultural practises, relevant stakeholders (farmers, students, training organizations…) are not necessary trained about this issue. There is currently few training on biocontrol and this is mostly incomplete and does not cover all the important aspects of biocontrol (regulation, commercialized products, global strategy implementation…). Moreover, these trainings are not accessible to all stakeholders in the agricultural field (rural areas) and are not intended to train trainers. That’s why the objective of the BET project is to develop a new distance training on biocontrol for a large audience of trainers (training organizations, Universities, School, Chambers of Agriculture, technical Institutes…) in different countries of Europe, concerned by the same regulation. In a second time, this project is indirectly targeting trainees (students, farmers,) related to agricultural education, to improve their knowledge regarding biocontrol. A distance learning will be developed in collaboration between all partners who benefit from strong knowledge and important network in the field of biocontrol, or important skills for distance learning development. This distance learning will take account of differences within Europe thanks to the participation of countries representing at least 50% of European agricultural production. Through the implementation of questionnaires for the future trainers and trainees and testing phases, we hope to produce a complete training, corresponding to the expectations of the different target groups. The main objective are to develop innovative and attractive pedagogical content in order to improve the skills on biocontrol for a great diversity of trainers, to optimize this content and disseminate it as widely as possible, through the development of a distance tool. Moreover, this distance tool can, in the medium term, reach many people across Europe. The project can indeed be duplicated in other countries through the development of a complete project guide.
In a European context of reducing the use of conventional pesticides (“Pesticide Package”), biocontrol (use of natural products for the management of pests and diseases) is a very promising alternative. The market for biocontrol products is indeed growing and several dozen new products are expected on the European market within 5 years. However, despite the rapid development of agricultural practices, the specific actors (farmers, training organizations, students in the agricultural sector, etc.) are not necessarily trained in this issue. There are currently few training courses on biocontrol and these are for the most part incomplete and do not cover all the important aspects of biocontrol (regulation, marketed products, implementation of the global strategy, etc.). In addition, these training courses are not accessible to all actors in the agricultural sector (rural areas) and are not intended to train trainers. This is why the objective of the BET project was to develop a new distance learning course on biocontrol for a large audience of trainers (training organizations, Universities, technical schools and high schools, Chambers of Agriculture, Technical institutes, etc.) in different European countries, affected by the same regulations. Secondly, this project indirectly targeted learners linked to agricultural education (students, farmers, agricultural technicians, etc.), to improve their knowledge of biocontrol. To achieve this goal, several activities were carried out - Study : The first step of the BET project was to conduct an international study with a large audience of trainers (training organizations, Universities, Schools, Chambers of Agriculture, Technical institutes, etc.) and learners (students, farmers, professionals, etc. ). The objective was to define the training needs of the target groups in the field of biocontrol to develop the training program. The study was conducted through the distribution of electronic questionnaires to all target audiences in all participating countries. The list of stakeholders' contacts was established via the networks of the project partners, but also following certain BtoB meetings during conferences. 300 participants were expected. 445 participants finally responded to the survey (67% learners and 33% trainers). 80% of them showed an interest in the project testing phase. - Training development: Thanks to the results of the study, we developed the training program on biocontrol. 4 training courses have been created (General concepts / Research and development / Integrated Pest Management / Regulations). Each training course available in 4 languages (EN, FR, SP, IT) contains around ten videos, podcats, PDFs and self-assessment quizzes. The content is implemented on an LMS platform created as part of the BET project (https://mygreentrainingbox.com/). To complete this digital content, webinars were produced and subsequently broadcast in the form of a mini web-series on biocontrol posted on youtube in spring 2020. - Testing phase : More than 1000 participants have registered on the BET training platform since the testing phase launching. 109 participants provided feedback to improve the platform and digital content (= testing phase 1). 211 participants (mainly students and agricultural technicians) also took part in a more in-depth testing phase (=testing phase 2) with an assessment of the level before and after the follow-up of the training. This testing phase, coupled with the testing phase 1 questionnaire, highlighted the educational quality of the training created and the diversity of the potential target audience.