RESILIENT FARMLANDS: PROMOTING EDUCATION TO BOOST ECOSYSTEM SERVICES OF NON-PRODUCTIVE AGRICULTURAL LANDS Erasmus Project

Project Title

RESILIENT FARMLANDS: PROMOTING EDUCATION TO BOOST ECOSYSTEM SERVICES OF NON-PRODUCTIVE AGRICULTURAL LANDS

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 adult education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Environment and climate change; Agriculture, forestry and fisheries; Rural development and urbanisation

Project Summary

<< Background >>

Farmland occupies 40% of the area of the EU, and farming practices strongly influence biodiversity conservation, ecosystem service delivery, climate change and the quality of soil, air and water. We applied for this project because we detected that farmers all over Europe, in the context of Ecological Focus Areas (EFAs), were virtually applying only the indirect, low-value conservation actions (96,5%), such as catch crops or nitrogen fixing crops over the most direct, high-value conservation actions (only 3,5%), such as conservation of field margins, forests or ponds (non-productive agricultural lands, NPAL). Reports suggest that one of the reasons why direct conservation measures are avoided is a lack of understanding and/or know-how about 1) the many benefits of NPAL conservation for farming and its productivity: pollination, pest control, water regulation, climate change mitigation, etc 2) the importance of conserving these areas for nature, health and society. The current situation, combined with the lack of success of CAP’s greening, threatens to deepen in the loss of biodiversity and ecosystemic services in the EU. Thus, we decided to design tools to build the capacity of farmers and agricultural techincians in such topics.

<< Objectives >>

The main objective of this project was to build the capacity of farmers and agricultural technicians (knowledge, practical tools and know-how) in the conservation of non-productive agricultural lands, in order to boost the implementation of the most direct and effective conservation actions. The specific objectives defined in the submission were:

1) to elaborate free, open, tailored, high-quality, practical and complementary tools to build up the
skills and empower farmers and their assessors and trainers.

2) to provide free, tailored, high quality (online*) trainings for the main stakeholders involved in the
conservation of NPAL (non-productive agricultural lands, such as ponds, hedges, field margins or tree lines)

3) to enhance the collaboration among farmers, agricultural and conservation technicians and other
stakeholders to preserve NPAL and make farmlands more resilient in general terms

We consider all the objectives have been achieved, despite the major budget change that the project suffered after the resolution. Maybe the largest change was the fact of changing the trainings from an online training platform to mostly face-to-face/practical, due to elimination of IO3 and IO4 and its budget.

<< Implementation >>

The main activities carried out were

– 5 multiplying events, one per country, were conducted during the last 6 months of the project, to present the toolkit and the videos created during the project. 167 registered attendees, almost all of them were local/regional.
– Dissemination activites: 7 dissemination activities, including talks, seminars and congresses were carried out during the project, to spread our views and boost the impact of our initiative, had about 100 attendees (online and face-to-face)
– 10 training sessions were celebrated in 5 countires, (several of them of two days of lenght), 120 participants registered.
– 4 volunteering sessions, involving 55 people were conducted to implement designs of modification or creation of NPALs in agricultural estates, carried out in Italy and Spain.
– 3 Learning-Teaching-Training Activities involving more than 20 people were carried out to assess and give an external vision to the coordination team in ofder to produce the most adequate and well-balanced material possible. (Spain, Romania and France)

All the activities were used to gather feedback in order to improve or re-align the goals and products created during the project.

<< Results >>

The main output was a the creation of a 150-page toolkit for farmers and agricultural technicians named “Farming benefits of nature conservation” in 7 languages (despite 6 were intially defined [English, Spanish, French, Italian, Czech and Romanian] we added Catalan as well). Initially we suggested to create two different toolkits, but the agency suggested to do one for both targets. After the resolution of the project, the toolkits were intended to be only digital, but were finally printed in spanish and catalan (about 300 copies) thanks to the financial support of the Agriculture Department of Catalonia. As a complement, powerpoint presentations (used in the face-to-face trainings conducted) were created as support material and are available as summaries of the main tools in several languages (http://resifarms.eu/toolkit/)

The second most important output was the creation of four videos, recorded in the 5 countries participating in the project (subtitled in seven languages) and related to the main tools of the toolkit (ponds; hedgerows; open spaces; and “biodiversity, the core of agriculture”). The videos had the goal of explaining in a more simple, visual and exemplified way the contents of the most important tools created.

Project Website

http://resifarms.eu

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 133702 Eur

Project Coordinator

FUNDACIÓ PRIVADA EMYS & Country: ES

Project Partners

• FUNDATIA ADEPT TRANSILVANIA
• XARXA PER A LA CONSERVACIO DE LA NATURA
• CESKY SVAZ OCHRANCU PRIRODY
• CONSERVATOIRE DES ESPACES NATURELSDU LANGUEDOC ROUSSILLON ASSOCIATION
• COMITATO PER LE OASI WWF DELL’AREA FIORENTINA