Agriculture, agri-food industry and distribution sectors represent more than 5% of the European added value and 7% of employment, more than any other manufacturing sector. There were 10.5 million agricultural holdings in the EU in 2016, approximately one third of which in Romania. A large part of these farms are small, in particular in eastern and southern parts of the EU, such as Spain and Romania. The food chain is confronted with imbalances of power given the lower economic size of farms and the end links of the chain, retailers, in the context of increased globalization,concentration in the retail sector with main consequence of downward pressure on farm-gate prices, farmers not able to cover production costs. To increase their bargaining power farmers unite in cooperatives. Agricultural cooperatives represent 40% of the all supply, collection, and processing and marketing in the agriculture sector in EU. European agri-cooperative united in COGECA are recognized by the European institutions as representatives of farmers (currently there is no such representation from Romania). Agricultural education for many years has been aimed at increasing subject knowledge of farmers, but, as a consequence of the restructuring of the agri-food complex, different kinds of competencies are needed, including entrepreneurship, cooperative businesses, client orientation, sustainability, and innovation. Agricultural education institutes are therefore called to address better all these topics and to become a vital part of cooperative approaches to solving the problems of rural development. Professionals in the agriculture and agri-business sector need to be educated and /or trained in order to be able to provide necessary support to farmers & other rural entrepreneurs. All three participating HEI having a high specialization in the agri-food sector but need to improve the training of teachers and students in the field of cooperative enterprises and related good practices and policies in the agri-food sector. Cooperation business models and its specific management policies and practices are not taught in any of the agriculture universities in Romania. In this frame the specific objectives of our project are: to design and develop a European curricula for Higher Education focusing on cooperative business models in the agriculture sector necessary to educate agriculture students for further work as leaders, managers, staff, consultants, members of co-operative enterprises in the agriculture sector including through better use of open, digital multi-disciplinary learning and to promote excellence in teaching and skills development through training of 21 academics from the participating HEI in the field of cooperative business models in the agri-business sector and exchange of good practices in new and innovative pedagogies of the related topics. The main outputs are: a set of 14 case studies (4 for Spain, 4 for Germany and 6 for Romania) gathering best practices related to farmers/producers cooperation in the involved countries – in different sectors, fruit and vegetables, dairy, livestock etc. and with different functions marketing, credit, insurance, procurement, etc. depending on variable describing their competitiveness; videos capturing business models and management practices of cooperative enterprises, Teaching materials on Agriculture economics on Agri-food value chain and the position of cooperative enterprises; Cooperative enterprise and other collective farmers, rural organizations, including farmers associations –Legal /institutional aspects and public policies, and Management of Cooperatives– economic, financial and technical aspects and an Open Online Education Kit with practical tools on Starting an agriculture cooperative start-up, business planning and financial management of an agriculture cooperative in the context of agri-food value chain. Teaching materials will be used for the teaching in various disciplines of Agri-Food System related Master Programms at the participating HEI, such as: the International Master in Rural Development, the International Master in Natural Ressource Management and the Master in Agricultural Economics (Humboldt-University Berlin), the Master and post graduate studies at UAL and the Master studies of the Management Faculty at USAMV, mainly in the Agribusiness Master programme currently under -reaccreditation procedures for the following subjects Concepts of rural and regional development, management of enterprises, project planning, technology and economics of production, agriculture policies, marketing strategies, community project and enterprise planning. 19 HEI teachers will be trained in project topics and other 70 HEI teachers or professionals will receive this information directly through the multiplication events, 25 students will attend the ISP and around 50 Master students in Romania, 70 in Germany and 50 in Spain taking the coop course every year.

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