<< Objectives >>The EUFRAS Young Advisors Mentoring and Training program aims to-attract young professionals to rural advisory services and encourage them at the beginnings of their careers; -improve retention and recruitment rates of young rural advisers;-establish the YEUFRAS network. -increase effective, up-to-date and motivated advisory work through international exchange;-promote generational change in the green professions and the ageing advisory network.<< Implementation >>A pilot mentoring and training program for young advisors will be developed, partly in a co-design process with participants. The program will pilot with 20 participants (mentees) and 10 mentors, featuring ten (10) two-day training units, certified by CECRA. At the end of the program, the participants will complete a consulting project under supervision and with feedback from their mentors, and the program will be evaluated and established as a regular Young-EUFRAS activity.<< Results >>The Development, piloting and establishment of a European Young Advisors Mentorship and Training Program for young rural advisors shall-reduce the high employee attrition and turnover of young advisors;-counteract the obsolescence in the advisory services;-allow small advisory services to offer young staff an attractive international trainee programme;-foster the creation of a long-term European network among young professional rural advisors under the flag of Young EUFRAS (YEUFRAS).

CONTEXT AND NEEDS:The aquaculture sector has experienced an important development over the last half-century, which has led it nowadays to account for nearly half of the fish supply in the world. It is expected that the increase in future fish demand will be satisfied through aquaculture production. Aquaculture accounts for about 20% of seafood production in Europe and directly employs about 85 000 people, mostly in rural and coastal areas. The sector has started to incorporate the principles of sustainability from early stages. However, in the fields of energy and water efficiency, the different proposals focus on acting on the main existing horizontal technologies, such as pumps or filtering systems, or on the optimization of energy contracts to reduce costs. These proposals mean an improvement that soon is diminished by the appearance of new inefficiencies in other points of the facilities or by productive changes that demand new revisions on the conditions of acquisition of energy. The high energy consumption of this sector is due to the need to use high consumption technologies, such as pumps, aerators, or tempering systems, as well as the fact that many of these facilities are located far from cores urban areas, making an additional difficulty in terms of availability of energy resources. For these reasons, there is a growing demand for a minimum level of training in the energy field that allows, both those responsible for the production and the technical teams in charge of the control and maintenance of the farms, to detect and act appropriately on the inefficiencies that may occur in different energy and water systems. OBJECTIVES: The consortium proposed the development of the training program Energy and Water Efficiency in Aquaculture (EWEAS) whose objective was to offer these professionals the necessary skills to: - Detect significant plant consumption and establish its optimum working range. - Perform and interpret the measurements of energy consumption in the main equipment. - Get to know and understand the different concepts of billing and hiring of energy supplies, in order to facilitate decision-making - Determine which are the most relevant energy consumption indicators and their current values, as well as being able to recognize the variations that they may encounter, as an indication of improvements or problems in production.- - To be able to assess the foreseeable impact on these indicators of the proposals for energy or water improvement that may arise in the future, The tools provided address the computerized treatment of the information collected and the analysis of energy indicators and improvement proposals. It provides the operational managers of the centers, the capacity, and necessary tools for continuous plant control. Planning, detection of needs and evaluation of alternatives and decision-making is essential to guarantee an adequate future operation of the farms, from the point of view of energy and water efficiency. The training program has been transformed into an e-learning program to make all these resources available to the sector through an interactive platform. This Open Educational Ressource is accesible online to everyone The EWEAS program proposes best practices, innovative tools, and practical solutions in order to increase growth and productivity by reducing their carbon footprint and wastewaters. CONSORTIUM: -SGS Tecnos (Spain) is a multinational company leader in certification, inspection, and testing, with strong expertise in energy efficiency and environment, as well as being ERASMUS + project leader and coordinator, with great results success. - API (Italy) The Italian Fish Farm association, the main representative of the aquaculture sector in Italy. - AquaTT (Ireland) is an SME with a not-for-profit mandate which works to empower research in aquaculture and marine sectors. - KGZS - Chamber of Agriculture and Forestry of Slovenia is the representative organization for the agriculture, forestry, and fishery - Biedrība Eurofortis (Latvia) is an expert in European educational projects, developing learning tools and methods, as well as e-learning materials. BENEFICIARIES AND IMPACT:The main beneficiaries of this new training program are the aquaculture workers, professional associations of the sector, fish farm managers, energy agencies, as well as public and private training centers. The EWEAS program facilitates self-management and control of water and energy consumption, giving them simple tools for their control and management, it reduces their energy bill as well as the carbon emissions and wastewaters. These companies increase their energy efficiency and are able to accede to better certification, and their workers can gain professional skills, computer literacy, increase their mobility, and the procedures in the aquaculture facilities are more homogeneous at the European level.

"European agriculture experienced huge changes in last decades. Adaptations to institutional and marketing changes, influenced by EU common agricultural policy, but also by societal wishes like food safety, animal welfare and the environment, require the ability to apply entrepreneurial skills as a key factor for survival. However, strategic thinking is rarely present in the farming sector. Agricultural producers focus on operational decisions taken “by the day” and often do not see the need for a long term vision for their firm. Especially the situation in less favoured regions, often in remote areas with relative small farms, is complex. To build a future in these areas asks for entrepreneurial competencies.The main purpose of the ISM+ project was to spread the idea of strategic thinking in agriculture and introduce innovative tools to support farm advisors and farmers in entrepreneurship and the strategic management process. The target groups of the project were farmers and vocational agricultural students on one hand and agricultural teachers, extension workers and advisors on the other hand.The project is based on the unique method and tool - Interactive Strategic Management (ISM), which was developed in the Netherlands and introduced in (transferred to) other European Countries like Poland, Slovenia, Lithuania and Austria. The method was used in trainings to instruct farmers, advisors and students how to prepare a successful farm strategy. The detailed aims of this ISM+ project were to:•improve entrepreneurial competencies of farmers, advisors, teachers, and agricultural students;•assess the local agricultural framework conditions by a context analysis in order to adapt the ISM method and understand the outcomes of the training process;•extend the ISM method to farmers and students in a variety of agricultural sectors (dairy, beef, pig, crop production);•make the training applicable to a larger language area in Europe (English, German, Polish, Lithuanian and Slovenian languages);•make the ISM method more applicable to market oriented development paths by adding the marketing module;•add a business planning module for economic assessment of farmer choices;•introduce the concept of networking to stimulate social entrepreneurship.The project consortium consisted of organizations in the fields of research, education, economics, know-how transfer and agro-business. Participation of the agricultural universities (Wageningen, Ljubljana and Warsaw) and the Economic Institute in Vilnius, on the one hand, and professional farmer associations (like in Klagenfurt) and extension services in all countries, on the other hand, assured smooth cooperation, innovative knowledge transfer and interaction between science and practice, which contributed to the achievement of the project objectives. The project results form a wide education platform for rural entrepreneurship: •Report from the Context analysis - about the differences in strategic choices of both farmers and stakeholders in different regions of Europe (resulted in two scientific articles and 2 articles in progress to be submitted).•IFMA publication with description of ISM+ tool and other tools all around the world.•Website ""Entrepreneurship with Vision"", devoted to Interactive Strategic Management for farming – serving as a platform for the project results and materials available to the wide public http://ism.sggw.pl/ •ISM+ tool with complete training materials (ISM+ handbook ""Entrepreneurship with Vision"", and other materials ) – is dedicated for trainings of farmers, rural entrepreneurs and advisors to work with farm strategy development. •Business planning module – it is an excel tool which helps to analyse the current farm economic situation and simulate future economic consequences for different strategy choices of farmers; •Marketing module – material for training in the area of the marketing strategy of the farm;•Guidelines for Networking methodology – serves as a guideline for trainers and extension workers in supporting networks in the agricultural sector and in implementing the networking concept in ISM trainings;•ISM training module guidelines for agricultural students – serves as curriculum for ISM sessions adjusted to agricultural students;•Book “Tools for improving entrepreneurship and communication for small scale farms” – helps to get insight into the ISM method and modules, including some examples from farms in the participating countries.The project supports the VET system in each of the participating countries and other countries, like Sweden, with the new method of training and training materials, and is also applicable at the level of agricultural professional schools. Farmers and advisors found the ISM method very interesting and innovative. The project has been stimulating and inspiring for all persons involved. We hope that our results will be useful for a wide range of beneficiaries."

THE CONTEXTThe farming sector has never stopped innovating and every generation brings new technological and organisational improvements and competencies. However, the pace of technological innovation is proceeding faster than ever before, and it is important to ensure that EU farmers take full advantage of this “digital revolution”. Policy advisors underline that the main concern for farmers is access to training and that this should be considered especially from a small farm perspective otherwise Europe will fail to maximise the benefits of digital technology.MAIN OBJECTIVEThe SFIB project will be implemented by 8 complementary project partners from 5 countries and focus on minding the gap between current farming industry digitization trends and the digital & smart technology era. The project wants to open a way to a new digital and technology innovation-oriented training method in the farming industry by combining the “Innovation Broker” approach in the farming sector with the current efforts put in place by the EU in the field of “Digital Innovation Hubs”.TARGET GRUPS AND PARTICIPANTS1) Owners, Managers, operations and technical staff of SMEs of the farming sector2) Cluster & Technical Service and Coaching staff, Thematic Business Consultants, Trainers of Cluster & Sectorial Organizations3) Technical Service and Coaching Staff, Consultants of Technology Parks, Business Development Centres, Digital Innovation Hubs4) Policy officers, Technical staff involved in defining innovation and training strategies, policies & action plans of Economic Development Bodies 5) Directors, Teaching staff, Learners & students, Phds of VET and Higher Education institutions6) Innovation brokersNEEDSA) RAISE & INCREASE AWARENESS about the potential of digital and smart farming potential B) OBSERVE & UNDERSTAND TECHNOLOGY AT WORK thus facilitating digitization and smart tech understandingC) IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF DIGITAL INNOVATION LEARNING APPROACHES by introducing a new professional figure and new cooperation-based learning mechanisms targeted to the farming sectorE) Guarantee the AVAILABILITY OF CONNECTED TRANSNATIONAL INNOVATION LEARNING STRUCTURES that will facilitate the distributed availability WORKING METHODThe project has been designed around 8 workpackages.WP 1 - Management – Indicator: Project implemented respecting time and qualityWP2 - Communication, Dissemination and Exploitation – Indicators: 1) Extended stakeholder base (including Innovation Brokers and DIHs), 2) Extended interested final beneficiaries, 3) Project anchored to professional training policiesWP3 - SMART TECH-MAP: M2-M5, focused on Intellectual Output 1 to answer the need “RAISE & INCREASE AWARENESS about the potential of digital and smart farming potential”. Indicators: 1) Increased knowledge about farming smart technology trends, 2) Increased knowledge level about knowledge gaps in the farming sectorWP4 – DIGITAL INNO BROKER MAP: M6-M8, focused on Intellectual Output 2 to answer the need “RAISE & INCREASE AWARENESS about the potential of digital and smart farming potential”. Indicator: 1) Consolidated network of Innovation BrokersWP5 – DIGITAL INNOVATION HUBS FOR SMART FARMING: M9-M12, focused on Intellectual Output 3 to answer 2 needs: “RAISE & INCREASE AWARENESS about the potential of digital and smart farming potential” and “OBSERVE & UNDERSTAND TECHNOLOGY AT WORK thus facilitating digitization and smart tech understanding”. Indicator: 1) Consolidated network of DIHsWP6 – SMART TECH & DIGITAL INNOVATION BROKERS: COMPETENCE PROFILE: M13-M18, focused on Intellectual Output 4 to answer 2 needs: “IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF DIGITAL INNOVATION LEARNING APPROACHES” and “Guarantee the AVAILABILITY OF CONNECTED TRANSNATIONAL INNOVATION LEARNING STRUCTURES”. Indicators: 1) Available Competence profile of the Digital Innovation Broker, 2) Available Training Method, Package & Tools, 3) Cooperation Agreements between Innovation Brokers and DIHsWP7 – SMART TECH & DIGITAL READINESS & INNOVATION TRAINING: INCREASING THE FARMING INDUSTRY TECHNOLOGY READINESS LEVEL: M19-M30, focused on Intellectual Output 5 to complete the answer to the 2 above needs “IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF DIGITAL INNOVATION LEARNING APPROACHES” and “Guarantee the AVAILABILITY OF CONNECTED TRANSNATIONAL INNOVATION LEARNING STRUCTURES”. Indicators: 1) Available digital readiness assessment tool for the farming sector, 2) Available Smart Tech & Digital Readiness TrainingWP8 – SHARE, VALIDATE AND TRANSFER EVIDENCES: M31-M36 focused on Intellectual Output 6 to answer the need “Guarantee the AVAILABILITY OF CONNECTED TRANSNATIONAL INNOVATION LEARNING STRUCTURES”Indicators: 1) Available list of extended stakeholders, 2) Completed Transfer Sessions, 3) Increased number of interested rural / regional areas in our method, 4) Method transferred to other EU areas.

The proposed project: Initiative of Fostering cross-border knowledge exchange and co-creation on sustainable soil and farm management (Soil-X-Change) will help to connect farmers, actors, policy makers, projects, and initiatives to speed up innovation and promote faster, wider co-creation and transposition of innovative solutions into practice. It will contribute to effective AKIS by intensifying thematic cooperation between researchers, farmers, and other stakeholders in the EU. Soil-X-Change will also contribute to the green transition, smart agriculture, climate-neutrality, and sustainability areas, as well as enhancing and exchanging the knowledge of the main actors. Soil-X-Change, initiated by EIP-AGRI Operational Group practitioners (OGs), reflects the needs of 151 direct partners. It will collect, combine, harmonise, analyse and integrate the results and data product developed by the different EIP-AGRI OGs and the project partners. Soil-X-Change will disseminate and share innovative practices across 9 member countries. Furthermore, the Soil-X-Change project will bring together EIP OGs and key stakeholders working on sustainable soil and farm management to create an EU-wide network, share knowledge, and introduce ready-to-use practices that will enable farmers to make the right decisions related to agricultural production practices. At the end of the project the extended knowledge and innovative ideas of member and non-member OGs will widen the scope of their activities and showcasing their result to an increased number of stakeholders and farmers in an international environment and network across EU countries. Soil-X-Change will use a bottom-up approach (farmers to OGs) and will reinforce and share practical knowledge using the main dissemination channels suitable for farmers and practitioners.