Green Program for Organic Production Erasmus Project

Project Title

Green Program for Organic Production

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 2014

Project Topics

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

Project Summary

Context/background:
The market for organic agricultural products is the fastest growing segment of the European agriculture products market, even in times of economic crisis. Because of the growing environmental consciousness of European consumers this trend is set to continue in the foreseeable future. The European Union has chosen to promote organic agriculture because of its recognized environmental (biodiversity, climate, animal welfare) and social (rural development) benefits. The lack of organic agriculture vocational training in many countries, including Macedonia, is one of the major obstacles in realizing this aim and therefore in enabling agriculture producers in these countries to benefit from this global growth trend.

Objectives of the GreenPOP project:
The goal of the GreenPOP Project is to enable VET Providers in Macedonia to deliver innovative training programs and courses for sustainable (organic) agriculture with focus on practical (on-farm) training for a) students from agriculture VET schools (from year II,III and IV) as future farmers/employees, but also b) develop vocational short modular courses for agriculture entrepreneurs/farmers/workers. The project will enable delivery of the courses trough capacity building of the teachers/trainers and potential work-mentors/organic farmers using innovative model of work placements for the learners.
The objective is to create an operational and accredited (verified) vocational education program in terms of lifelong learning modular courses for organic agriculture in Macedonia, implemented by trained and experienced educational staff.
The activities that will be carried out in the project are towards the strengthening the cooperation among the four Partners from Macedonia and three EU Partners in a view of establishing exchanges of practices, promotion, testing and implementation of innovative practices in the field of agricultural vocational education and training, as well as the facilitation of the recognition and validation of knowledge, skills and competencies acquired trough the formal, non-formal and informal learning programs that are to be developed.

Number and profile of participants:
Participants were:
Students in the selected agriculture VET schools; Agriculture Entrepreneurs/ Farmers; Workers.
Teachers and school students.
The project involve more than 60 participants directly, together with 22 members of staff of the partners and more than 120 people taking part in seminars, conferences or workshops.

Methodology:
The project use a comparative approaches methodology with each partner testing the approaches to learning and agriculture development based on experiential learning practice. It also take a social action approach, making use of the input from learners, experts and stakeholders and testing learning competencies and tools in real-life situations.

Description of results:
1. Survey (inventories). A comprehensive document (Report) consisting data of organic agriculture production and regulation, education models and materials.
2. Developed curricula/program for lifelong learning purposes for organic production modular courses.
3. Developed and implemented trainings for teachers/trainers and work-mentors.
4. Piloting of the program. The developed curriculum will be tested for the two target groups: Students and Entrepreneurs. Results of the piloting will be: a) An evaluation report and presentation of all piloting activities; b) valorisation (accreditation) of the short courses program in organic production.
5. Dissemination actions. Activities that led to presentation of the GreenPOP Project model outcomes to potential users in Macedonia, but also inform and generate interest from other EU/Erasmus Countries. The concrete results are: A Dissemination plan, Presentation on dissemination Conference in Skopje and created and maintained project web-site.
6. Partner meetings. 7 partnership meetings implemented in order to have smooth cooperation among partners involved. The results from this action are: minutes from the meetings, Interim and Final Report.

Impact:
A professionalized set of training curricula/cscenarios (for VET Students and Adult Learners) concerning organic agriculture, with its positive impacts for employment of people that consider training as a vital factor from their professional development, promoting rural development, bio-security, biodiversity, soil and water conservation as well as climate protection quality. The outcome of the Project is an operational and accredited (verified) education program for organic agriculture in blended format in Macedonia, and implemented by trained and experienced educational staff.

The long-term benefit is to stimulate interest and knowledge-sharing around this topic and develop organic agriculture as business.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 182162 Eur

Project Coordinator

Fondacija Agro Centar za Edukacija FACE & Country: MK

Project Partners

• SUGS Brakja Miladinovci Skopje
• Verkmenntaskólinn á Akureyri
• Casa Colegio Mayor Menéndez Pelayo Provincia de Castilla Compañía de Jesús
• SOU Koco Racin Sveti Nikole
• Balkan Biocert OOD Plovdiv Bugarija, Podruznica Balkan Biocert OOD Skopje
• Stichting International Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture Training