Agricultural Youngsters Oriented Ultimate Training Handbook (AGRI-YOUTH)

There is a deep-rooted financial/economic crisis at the world level: from the outstanding credits from mortgage loans and speculative bubble in the USA in 2008, with bank and business cracks, till the risks of bankruptcy, after that in Iceland, in Portugal, Ireland, Greece, Italy, Spain, for the high rates on state bonds requested by the investors. The financial crisis even attacks the Euro, the heart of the European monetary policy.

This critical situation can affect also economies still developing, like Turkey. This economic situation affects the employment market with heavy social consequences, as uncertainty and marginalization of large part of the rural population. Recent analyses from the main world observatories on economics have announced difficulties even in 2013, after the recession in Europe in 2012, with enlargement of unemployment.

Agriculture had experienced for many years a constant decrease in the number of businesses, farmers, and workers. From 2008, some new facts came up, establishing a trend with increased number of farms, entrepreneurs and employees, particularly for youngsters and women. Specific reasons of the “new entries” are to be investigated for different national and local contexts, but the positive trend is consequent of the crisis in other sectors. At the same time the agriculture industry for commodities, after having reached the high added value in 2004, has a progressive erosion of incomes due to price reduction in the last years of the global market.

This situation could stop the revival of agriculture and depress the sector. The challenge is therefore to invest in education and training for human resources aiming at increasing the entrepreneurship culture of the new generations and women. „NATURALITER” was a successful Leonardo da Vinci TOI project based on different levels of education and training tools: the 1st level for a basic self-evaluation on farming; the 2nd level for a training-gym from a library of case studies; the 3rd level for farmers with skills on farm planning and managing. The selected farms were used as case studies for multifunctional activities as agro-tourism, organic products, traditional food products, gardening, nursery and landscaping, renewable energy sources.

The computerized corporate platform enables farmers and advisors to settle a business plan, to update, change and improve specific farms. In Italy this approach has been developed with further applications for: a) business management, b) environmental management and conditionality, c) quality management, d) safety at work, e) e-commerce, f) work intermediation, g) human resource management, h) accountancy and business plan, i) fiscal support.

The Agri-YOUTH project aims at updating, adapting, transferring those teaching materials with specific focus on new established young farmers and female entrepreneurs, also bridging experiences and best practices between the European countries and Turkey, with its specifities.

Duration of the project: 24 months (1st November, 2013 – 31st October, 2015)