Acronimo: FTB4CCM

Titolo:"The farmer's toolbox for climate change mitigation "

Bando: Adult education

Durata: 30 mesi (01/04/2021 – 31/03/2023)

Coordinatore: UNIPD - TESAF

Budget totale EU: € 233.976,00

Budget TESAF: € 63.910,00

Responsabile scientifico: Francesco Marinello

Team: Francesco Marinello, Federica D'Acunto

Riassunto: Around 22.2 million people work regularly in agriculture (or 8.7 million full-time equivalent workers), but the farming sector needs to attract a new generation of farmers with the necessary skills to live and work in a challenging context. They will have to produce more efficiently while protecting the environment; contribute to the fight against climate change; meet society's demands regarding healthy and balanced diets; and keep up with increasingly rapid scientific and technological progress.  It is therefore essential that future farmers benefit from adequate agricultural education and training and acquire the various skills needed to adapt to a changing environment.  The current common agricultural policy (CAP) places strong emphasis on knowledge sharing and innovation.  
 On the other hand, a lifelong learning approach is required in agriculture in order to upskill and extend knowledge, building upon prior learning by working adults and focusing on learning outcomes, regardless of the learning path (formal or non-formal).  However, in a large part of the traditional agricultural knowledge and information system, knowledge flows still move in a top down direction, from industry or research to farmers. However, experience shows that more networked approaches are needed.  In order to reverse this top-down relationship and promote a more participative and equal approach to knowledge creation in the agriculture sector, the project comprehends a complementary set of organisations which represent different interest and stakeholders and bring useful background and experience in order to enable farmers, agricultural and rural workers to upskill or learn new skills and diversify their activities and initiatives.  
 In compliance with the European Parliament that considers to be necessary to promote continuing vocational training for farmers and agricultural workers in future, and to promote the dissemination of scientific knowledge and innovation, to ensure adaptability to a changing economic environment, the project is aimed at developing climate smart agriculture skills for farmers through the creation of ad hoc training materials in order to generate awareness about challenges of climate change and sensitize them about benefits of climate smart agriculture (CSA). These contents will enable especially small farmers and farmholders to freely access to practical knowledge in order to invest and modify their agricultural practices. The project foresees, in fact, the development of two main results:
-a MOOC about climate smart agriculture to provide key information about CSA and to present learners some useful practices in order to improve land management in view of biodiversity principles and climate change adaptation needs
-an online Simulator that will allow learners, small farmers and farmholders to simulate in a virtual environment the benefits on a given area of the implementation of CSA measures presented in the MOOC.
The MOOC and the Simulator are addressing mainly future farmers, students, expert farmers, farmers’ associations and organisations that are interested to acquire CSA-related skills or to upskill their farming competences and to test them into a virtual environment.  Accessing to the MOOC and the Simulator, in fact, we expect users to enhance their farming knowledge, approaches and practices, in particular in the case of critical climate scenarios, and increase competences on climate change adaption practices (soil and water management, climate resilient crops etc.). Moreover, the use of open digital practices will improve users’ confidence and usability of digital tools, especially in agriculture, and will facilitate the spread of open information on the topic, by creating a transnational knowledge community.

Sito Web: https://www.farmingbox.eu