Farming sector employs 22 million people in EU, being a main employer in consortium countries such as Bulgaria (20%) or Greece (11%), with 9 on every 10 people working alone (farm holder) or with the family. In 2018, 60% of farm managers on the EU's 10.5 million holdings were older than 55 years. Only about 10% farm managers were below 40 years old, and these farmers have some agricultural training, while only 3% of farmers older than 65 year olds have any training. In EU, 70% of farm managers only have practical experience, less than 10% have full agricultural training, and the rest (22%) have basic agricultural training. Skills are mainly acquired through transference of experience from senior farmers into family members. PROJECT OBJECTIVE is to improve the training attractiveness of the agroecology VET, providing teachers with tools with capacity to attract farmers to higher levels of education, and also recover silver knowledge which can be otherwise lost. Agrosilver Value is a mix of PARTNERS coming from countries with different profiles of training, and different profiles of farmers: - Chambre of Agriculture Lot-et-Garonne (FR) is a leading region in agriculture, with younger and more formally-trained farmers than the EU average. - Ekologykm (BG) is a SME experienced in VET for ecology, sustainable agriculture and innovation. Similar activities to Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Chania (EL). - FundeuTAD (ES) is a SME experienced in VET, data processing and video processing. - Gozo Ministry (MT) and Extremadura Government (ES) participates with the corresponding department of agriculture training. - INPLA (ET) is a SME expert in impact monitoring and quality evaluation. ACTIVITIES. In order to achieve the objectives, and deliver the results, the project includes 8 Group of Tasks: - 4 transversal (coordination, quality control, monitoring, dissemination). - GT2 for preparation - GT3, GT4 and GT5 as core developers of outputs. GT3 DATA PLATFORM (M1 to M9) Where consortium will carry out the video recording of practices and knowledge, both from famers (silver especially) and teachers, with a following process of data structuring and indexing into the data-platform. GT4 SILVERKNOWS SOFTWARE (M2 to M16) Where the SilverKnows Software is developed, and all the videos processed into a data mine. GT5 RECOGNITION TOOL, LEARNING UNITS AND PILOT COURSES (M16 to M30) Where the consortium generates learning units and creates a pilot course for teachers. Partners will also promote recognition methodology and generate software manuals and users documents. The final results to be achieved for the project are linked to the project objectives and the activities: - Result 1. To introduce opportunities for the initial and continuous professional development of agricultural VET teachers. - Result 2. Making agricultural training more attractive. - Result 3. Accelerating the share of knowledge among agricultural VET teachers. - Result 4. The increase on the use of digital technologies among agricultural VET teachers. - Result 5. To increase the recovery of farmers to the formal teaching. - Result 6. Ameliorate the role that the education has in the fight against the global warming. The main intellectual outputs assuring the mentioned results are: - INTELLECTUAL RESULT/OUTPUT 1. DATA PLATFORM Compilation of videos related to agroecology, based on the real experiences and testimonies of farmers and teachers (more than 120 videos and 1000 minutes). - INTELLECTUAL RESULT/OUTPUT 2. SILVERKNOWS SOFTWARE SilverKnows reads the contents of the videos, converting the audio into encoded information, in any of the country languages, allowing users (teachers) to search for specific content, based on multiple filters and key information, in order to obtain customized reports on the training content available. - INTELLECTUAL RESULT/OUTPUT 3. LEARNING UNITS AND SOFTWARE TUTORIALS In order to test and obtain feedback on the usability of the software, one online pilot course will be prepared. - INTELLECTUAL RESULT/OUTPUT 4. RECOGNITION METHODOLOGY To validate agroecology knowledge of farmers, based on video recording, which will be processed by the software. QUANTITATIVE IMPACTS INDICATORS > 170 project participants with increased skills thanks to direct project actions > 50 organizations with increased skills thanks to direct involvement in technical project activities > 500 participants in project actions QUALITATIVE IMPACTS INDICATORS 1.000 minutes of videos (120 videos) produced by partners and 100 new minutes every year by external users. 100 new users will register every year 5 farmers using the recognition methodology and reincorporated to VET system. 40 teachers improving their teaching contents and methods > 500 sessions per year in the software > 500 visualizations or video downloads > 300 downloads of the contents > 5 media appearances /year and > 30 news appearing in websites. > 1.000 site visits/year.
PROJECT OBJECTIVE is to improve the training attractiveness of the agroecology VET, providing teachers with tools with capacity to attract farmers to higher levels of education, and also recover silver knowledge which can be otherwise lost. AgroSilver-Value provides a new approach for the professional development of VET teachers in the agriculture sector. The project gives new technological tools which will allow teachers to increase their teaching methods and contents. The tools will easy the teaching, feeding the VET teachers with new attractive content, 100% work-based, and allowing them to improve their current teaching methodologies. The attractiveness of agricultural teaching will increase, both for the teacher and the student, and the teachers will be able to develop better own curricula.
Farming sector employs 22 million people in EU, being a main employer in consortium countries such as Bulgaria (20%) or Greece (11%), with 9 on every 10 people working alone (farm holder) or with the family. In economic terms, agriculture represents a main activity in all of the countries, being exceptional in countries such as France and Spain (13% and 7% GDP). In EU, 70% of farm managers only have practical experience, less than 10% have full agricultural training, and the rest (22%) have basic agricultural training. Skills are mainly acquired through transference of experience from senior farmers into family members. In many cases, due to lack of generational relief, this silver/senior knowledge is not transmitted and lost. Agrosilver Value wanted to mix countries with different profiles of training, and different profiles of farmers ages, trying to design tools which gathered this silver knowledge and used it to promote a higher attractiveness of the agroecology VET for all the ages of farmers.