The objective of GenTORE is to develop innovative genome-enabled selection and management tools to optimise cattle resilience and efficiency (R&E) in widely varying environments. These tools, incorporating both genetic and non-genetic variables, will be applicable across the full range of systems (beef, milk and mixed), and will thereby increase the economic, environmental and social sustainability of European cattle meat and milk production systems. To achieve this, GenTORE brings together: 1) multidisciplinary scientific expertise in genomics, environmental assessment, nutritional physiology, health management, precision livestock farming, mathematical modelling, and socio-economics; 2) partners and stakeholders representing breeding organisations, farm technology companies, farm and veterinary advisory services, and farm sectors (organic, grazing, etc.); and 3) a unique data basis including >1 million genotypes. This multi-actor team will develop tools for: multi-breed selection for R&E, characterisation of diverse farm environments, large-scale phenotyping of R&E using on-farm technology, on-farm management of breeding and culling decisions, and predicting the consequences for farm resilience of changing breeding and management. These tools are designed to be applicable under commercial conditions at the end of the project. They will allow increased use of the genomic diversity in cattle breeds, e.g. use of selective cross-breeding to best exploit the local production environment. They will also allow farm managers, their advisors, and policy-makers, to assess the relative importance of breeding for animal resilience vs breeding for efficiency, with respect to system resilience. As such GenTORE will not only enable the use of genomic information to facilitate predictive biology of efficiency- and resilience-related traits, but will also increase resilience of livestock production in the face of current and future challenges of climate change and food security.

<< Objectives >>The project seeks to achieve the following general objectives: Increase competences of farming professionals that farm conventionally and new entrants (all adults) in the field of farming. Additionally the project seeks to connect new and old farmers and facilitate transfer of knowledge and conversion of the conventional farms to organic farming throug soft skills improvements. And also to attract young people to the sector (ie. people of 20-30 years of age)<< Implementation >>The project will, apart from the project results mentioned below, implement intensive dissemination of the project results and involvement of various stakeholders, networks and institutions European wide. Project results will be incorporated into the everyday routine of the project partners and will be used widely in their trainings in next years, however they won´t stay static, but will act as a touchstone of the organic farming training and will be constantly under the development.<< Results >>WP2 - total of 15 thematic sheets covering all the topics necessary to understand organic farming in depth accompanied with a trainer´s guide that would facilitate the use of the sheets for the trainers and possibly for pedagogues at variinstitutions. WP3 - total of 15 thematic videos covering the sheet´s topics that would be integrated in the WP2 and would serve as an audiovisualisation of the issues discussed within the WP, created in the practice of organic farming in the partner countries.

In the Strategic Partnership “Learning place Bio-Farm” 8 partners from 7 countries developed an e-learning course and interactive online portal, offering learning materials and Open Educational Resources (OERs) for training of teachers, farmers, staff of coordinating agencies, other pedagogues and NGO staffs as “Bio-Farm Guides”. Educational farm visits provide an alternative and innovative space that enables “informal and formal learning” to take place alongside the more conventional school learning environment. Bio-Farms are ideal for teaching. Groups of children and young people can spend the day on farm in practical way. Visits on the farm are interactive workshops. Learning first-hand on a farm about the realities and challenges of food production can be an important formative experience. Farm visits are ideal practical complement to the knowledge acquired in the schools (biology, geography, economics, ecology and environmental protection, sustainability). Teachers and other pedagogues can find in farm life various links to school curricula and experience areas, to open a practical and non-cognitive access to educational subjects and issues. Attending a farm visit brings particular benefits for teachers, who educate pupils with difficulties in mainstream learning systems. Classes including children and youth with special needs (e.g. refugees, children with migrant background, and children with developmental disorders, learning disabilities or social problems) get intensive and new experience for the group apart from conventional patterns of learning and competing in classrooms. Visits on organic farms can support teachers in integrating those children and young people.A special focus in the project was laid on refugee children and families. Europe has to face the challenge to integrate a lot of refugees in the society. The “Learning place Bio-Farm” has a big potential to offer this group of people new perspectives outside their living in refugee camps. Visiting the countryside offers an inside into the European culture and nutrition behaviour. Besides this the organic farming sector is an economically growing branch that needs motivated young people to work in. Job perspectives (as an organic farmer, bakers, butchers, or shop keepers) can be explained during the farm visits not only for young European pupils but as well for refugees.Target groups were farmers, coordinating agencies, pedagogues, teachers and educational institutions, other trainers and stakeholders, NGO staffs, representatives of public administration, teachers, other educators and farm guides. The partnerships consisted of 8 partners from 7 countries – Austria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Norway, Poland and the United Kingdom. The partners are institutions with experiences and competences in different areas of farm education.The first result of the project is “Guidelines and a Didactic Concept for training at the Learning Place Bio-Farm” (O1). It contains materials for the preparation and implementation of visits at the “Learning Place Bio-Farm” and instructions for the use of the e-learning course and online portal. It is provided as PDF for download and print in all partner languages and English. The second result is the English pilot e-learning course “Learning place Bio-Farm” (O2). With 6 thematic modules it trains teachers, farmers, farm education officers and coordinators how to prepare and structure farm visits and workshops. The course is based on learning materials and course content developed before and available as PDF for printing. The course is provided at the online portal as OER and based on the Learning Management System EasyAdmin, which has been developed especially for this project.The third results are seven national versions of the e-learning course for training on “Learning Place Bio-Farm” (IO3) in all six partner languages, shaped according to their particular national conditions, requirements and needs. It consists of 6 modules. The course is not only translated, but adapted to the specific backgrounds, needs and requirements in of the partner countries. Based on a testing with important national target groups and stakeholders and regarding evaluations the revised final versions are published on national online platforms in each partner country. The fourth result is the Online Portal “Learning Place Bio-Farm” (IO4), available in all partner languages. It comprises a broad spectrum of interactive educational resources - the e-learning course, additional training materials, as well as case studies and examples of educational activities that can be accessed to demonstrate good practice in outdoor learning. Further results are dissemination workshops and multiplier events carried out for farmers, coordinating agencies, pedagogues, teachers and educational institutions and an international network established within the project.

Context and Background to the ProjectThe aim of the Strategic Partnership was to develop an e-learning course and interactive online portal called “Education from Field to School”, offering learning materials and Open Educational Resources for training teachers and educators and enable them to develop food and farming learning experiences within the school. Farms and gardens provide an excellent real-world environment to teach children about food production, environmental issues and the cultural heritage of food. Our project provides the tools to take these practical learning experiences into the school and classroom. Research on school-farm cooperations have shown that farm visits are most effective if they are followed up in the classroom before and after the visit and referred back to later during primary education. Real-world learning and green spaces bring particular benefits for teachers, who educate pupils with difficulties in mainstream learning systems, and children with special needs.ObjectivesOur Field to School web-based/digital training platform (www.fieldtoschool.eu) aims to provide support for educators to acquire new skills and competences, using the theme of food to help tackle social and diversity issues; entrepreneurship education; environmental thinking and practical opportunities for disadvantaged learners. In turn, these activities will help provide softer outcomes of increased personal development and employability of educators and their pupils, and contribute to the celebration of European cultural heritage. The training gained will provide new skills to education and training professionals in both formal as well as informal educational settings.The project aimed to: - investigate the best practice Field to School examples that partner organisations are involved with - develop case study information and films to demonstrate the activities to others - share the background information required for running these farm links projects through the web-based training platform - provide open source educational resources on e-twinning and or the SEG - disseminate and promote the project in the partner countries and more widelyNumber and type of ParticipantsThe partnerships consists of eight partners from seven countries – Austria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Norway, Poland and the United Kingdom. The partners are institutions with experiences and competences in different areas of school and farm education and a core group of staff with relevant experience were involved in meetings and developing the materials . A total of 21 different participants from the partners and eight participants from other organisations were involved in the transnational meetings. Over 3200 participants were involved in the wider engagement and dissemination work of the project.The project delivered the following activities:Didactic guidelinesThe benefits of Field to School activities and outline to the project e-learning portal were prepared for the guidelines section of the website, with links to all the partner organisations.Transnational meetingsRegular Transnational meetings were held throughout the project in the partner countries involved, providing an opportunity to plan and update on progress. Each meeting also included a best practice visit so that meeting participants could discover more about innovative approaches in each country. Case studiesWe investigated and showcased examples of best practice in partner countries where the farm visit connection is maintained with the school. Our case study section comprises 28 written, photographic and filmed project examples to provide the inspirational training content on the Field to School portal. ResourcesTo help enable teachers to run projects in their own schools, over 50 resource sheets and films were created on the following topic areas:Enterprise; Farming; Growing; Food; Social and Digital project ideas.Field to School portalAll the resources are on the freely accessible fieldtoschool.eu website and adapted and translated where required for use in all seven partner countries. The Project website has been uploaded to the Project Results Platform suggested content for School Education Gateway October 2020 topic of Project Based Learning.DisseminationThe partners were involved in dissemination of the work of the Field to School programme throughout the duration of the project. This included information on websites, engagement with colleagues, presentations at events and conferences, promotion to other Erasmus projects, discussions with stakeholders and social media/press contact. These are reported further in the report, together with Multiplier Events that were hosted for key stakeholders.Results and ImpactThe partners have been able to learn from each other and embed the resources into their own programmes in each country, drawing on the resources for their physical and online training delivery.

MIXED is a multi-actor project to drive the development of European Mixed Farming and Agroforestry Systems (MiFAS) that optimize efficiency and resource use, reduce GHG emissions, and show greater resilience to climate change by considering agronomic, technical, environmental, economic and social advantages and constraints. The project will, through a participatory and transdisciplinary process, develop, improve and implement efficient and resilient MiFAS in collaboration between organic and conventional networks of farmers, advisors, researchers and other stakeholders. Assessment of potential impacts on environment and mitigation and adaptation to climate change will be made at the farm, landscape and value chain level. The development of new and improved MiFAS will include combined effects on crop and livestock production, livestock health and welfare, soil structure and fertility. Methods for landscape resilience assessments will be developed and life cycle assessment methodologies adapted to selected value chains and MiFAS including modelling of carbon sequestration and biodiversity. Indicators (economic factors, nutrients, GHG, etc.) and socio-economic factors important for farmers’ decision-making for transition to or improving efficiency and resilience of MiFAS will be integrated in farm-level decision support tools. Assessment of trade-offs and synergies between efficiency and resilience of MiFAS at multiple levels will inform discussions between policy makers and the agricultural sector for the support of strategies for larger-scale implementation of MiFAS. The project will facilitate dialogue and dissemination of MiFAS to farmers as well as to decision makers at regional and EU level to ensure the highest levels of implementation of MiFAS at farm and landscape scale for efficient and resilient production and performance in terms of climate change and eco-systems services.