The horizontal objective of the project is to foster the social and educational value of European cultural heritage within its contribution to job creation, economic growth and social cohesion. The main field of the project is short food supply chain (SFSC) development which is one of the most relevant factors as well as a tool of European food cultural heritage maintenance. However, researches in recent years, as well as surveys of producers and consumers, have highlighted the problem that small producers have difficulties separately, so they need to work together to gain market access. Intermediate players have taken over some of these activities from producers. These are supply chain organizers who understand market and agricultural processes thus helping farmers to gain market access. Experts agreed that it is necessary to start a special SFSC organizer training and to develop special eligibility conditions, as well as the training of SFSC advisers, however, these development and support directions are still missing in practice. Therefore the partnership is committed to explore the possible ways on how to generate the position of a so-called Rural facilitator and to develop the necessary learning materials and training tools to train individuals who intend to take under this new profession in their career. The outcomes of the project will provide an innovative teaching approach where organisers can partake from capacity building which will strong economic impact on successful value chain organisation and rural employment development. The target group of the project: Organizers/animators potentially involved: resuming intellectual women; Employees of LEADER organizations; already existing market organizers; rural development NGO; restaurant suppliers; rural tourism organizers/providers, producers and restarters in rural areas. General objectives of the project: To map problems, necessary competencies and existing practices in the field, to survey on the required competencies of the potential rural facilitators. Based on the mapped hiatus and the targeted competencies, the project will build up a training material, a curriculum and will conduct pilot test phases, whose basis will be laid in the frame of a joint staff meeting. The project will compile and use all those knowledge bases and competencies of partners which can be channelled into this specific field and exploit them to social innovation by ways of adapting them to the material as well as passing on capacity building knowledge. Partnership: -The members of the partnership are all related actors of the agricultural sector but with various focuses and expertise. The consortium contains a university, a farmer representation body, National Union of Small Farmers and Service providers, a stakeholder for autonomous groups in agriculture and a regional development body, and a training centre. Activities of the project: 1. The essence of the project is to assess the current real demand for competencies to be acquired (competence needs research in partnership): e.g. organizational skills, legislation, food safety, processing, marketing, logistics, communication (IO1- SOTA and Competence catalogue) 2. Subsequently, the project partners will find out what rural development and business conditions are needed for these qualified specialists to be employed and earn their wages on a market basis (IO2-BUSINESS ROADMAP PREPARATION). 3. Depending on local needs and capabilities, project partners prepare a joint learning material by integrating the adaptable points of the already existing knowledge basis (IO3-HANDBOOK) 4. Channelling their knowledge from similar fields into our training, the French partner performs a Joint Staff Training (training of trainers). (Part of IO3) 5. Based on the Handbook and results of IO1, pilot trainings will be implemented involving trainers who gained knowledge through the joint staff training. A curriculum and supplementing training tools will be elaborated (IO4- Curriculum and course) 6. Multiplier events are foreseen to spread the results of the project in each country towards the end of the project. (Part of IO4) Main project results are · identifying rural facilitators in the partner countries · studying the necessary knowledge, competencies and circumstances of rural facilitators · enhancing social innovation by developing new curricula and handbook · fostering European food rural heritage due to small farming development · decreasing unemployment in rural areas · supporting access to healthy and trust foods for consumers. Partners will ensure the availability of project results for at least 5 years and will focus their efforts and means in order to, after the project completion, mainstream and multiply results, by creating handbooks and curricula in their countries and Europe.
The project results offered variants on how to contribute to the sustainability of the food system by raising the viability of small and medium‑sized farms. The partnership between Hungary, Czech Republic, Romania and Poland made possible a region-focused solution because their history and social capabilities were similar though there was a lot to learn from each other due to traditions and local customs The international mobility offered an opportunity to understand the specialities in the regions and foster capacity building by common understanding and knowledge transfer. Additionally the French partner assisted to get to know good cooperation practices from a special point of view. The international approach assisted to recognize and implement local practices and develop new competences on a strong, local basis. Thus it was supported to gain our objective to create an innovative curriculum which maintained local food heritage produced by small farmers. To sum up general objectives of the project we could highlight the mapping problems, necessary competences and existing practices in the field, and surveying on the required competences of the potential rural facilitators.
Small and family farmers represent the majority of the EU farming sector and were considered as the cornerstone of EU agriculture. Despite this fact the weak market position of small farmers could raise barriers to entry of new or to continue with the farming when the generations on the farm change. In the EU's CAP for 2021-2027 the priority was sustainable development of EU agriculture and the support focused on SME´s farmers. However, it was also a problem that small farmers were not effective enough on their own to compete with multinationals in the food sector and they cannot directly reach EU support. Therefore intermediates in value chains had a vast impact on the sustainability of small farmers. It was a highlighted topic especially in CEE countries where the portion of small and semi subsistence farms was higher than in Western European countries. Nevertheless, in CEE regions the recreation of value chains demanded new approaches as well as new tools and competences. That was why our project aimed to identify these new sorts of knowledge transfers, capacity building and innovation driven social activities in the chosen regions across intermediary rural actors.