European Broaded Agriculture by Multifunctional Activities Erasmus Project

Project Title

European Broaded Agriculture by Multifunctional Activities

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for vocational education and training

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2016

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Agriculture, forestry and fisheries; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

The EBAMA project was a project that arose on the one hand from the concern for the future of family farms and on the other hand from the ambition to give a place to broadening agriculture in VET education.
The aim of the project was to distil the most important competences needed to broaden agriculture and on the other hand to look for ways to learn these within the training courses.
The seven partner countries (Estonia, Finland, Germany, Spain, Italy, Greece and Belgium) in this project had a good geographical spread and different historical backgrounds. In addition, they approached the problem from different backgrounds, ranging from education to research, information and entrepreneurship. This multidisciplinary composition has visited and screened almost 40 farms over almost 3 years. In addition to these farm visits, research institutes, information organisations, cooperatives, commercial enterprises and educational institutions that could contribute to the theme of agricultural broadening were also visited.
The findings during the visits were discussed and summarised in the reports after each meeting. They were then used in combination with literature studies and consultation of specialists to create a curriculum and a pedagogical manual.
The project has had the impact of increasing awareness in order to promote broadening as a form of agriculture with many opportunities for the future for family farms. The need arose to urgently incorporate this into agricultural education and even with a different didactic approach.
During the project it became clear that agricultural expansion requires a different profile of the farmer, in which entrepreneurship plays an important role. It also turned out that the assumption that all competences can be taught (the “makeable” farmer) was largely wrong and that other pedagogical methods should also be considered in order to discover and strengthen certain competences.
It has also been shown that research and information-services should be expanded in the future in order to provide better support for the farmer who is broadening. Many of the farms we visited were pioneers and thrived on their own potential for learning and research.
The project will certainly be able to make its contribution in the near and further future to confirm and support initiatives in connection with agricultural broadening.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 229711 Eur

Project Coordinator

vzw Katholiek Onderwijs Vlaanderen & Country: BE

Project Partners

• UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI PERUGIA
• IES MONASTIL
• The Federation of Swedish Ostrobothnia for Education and Culture/YA – Vocational College of Ostrobothnia
• JÄRVAMAA KUTSEHARIDUSKESKUS
• Agri-Kultur-Freunde e.V.
• MEDITERRANEAN AGRONOMIC INSTITUTE OF CHANIA