Boosting SOcial and Organic farming for incUsive and sustainable gRowing eConomiEs

"<< Background >>The main motivation for applying for the project was to strengthen the links between social farming and organic farming. Indeed, while the organic sector is growing strongly and is fairly structured in terms of training, the social farming sector is currently of great interest, but training opportunities are sporadic and not yet systematised in many countries, including the partner countries. With the project we wanted to address the need for more in-depth training opportunities that would consider both social and organic farming together.<< Objectives >>The main objective of the project was to strengthen the link between social farming and organic farming by supporting the training processes of farmers and aspiring farmers to disseminate social and organic farming for sustainable and inclusive ecosystems. In this sense, the main achievement of the project was to contribute to the improvement of existing training practices and the design of a common training curriculum for the so-called ""social organic farmer"".The implementation of the project has also led to the outlining of key policy recommendations for the support of social and organic farming training and its development for a more inclusive society.<< Implementation >>The first activity was a back-office analysis and field research activity to establish a common knowledge base among the partners in order to achieve the objectives of the project in a spirit of sharing and better understanding of the state of the art of social and organic farming both at the European level and in the three countries involved in the project (Italy, Hungary and Greece). The second activity was the analysis of the skills and competences needed to define the profile of the social-organic farmer and a consequent training syllabus; this phase was carried out through interviews with various operators in the sector, supported by a competence matrix. An analysis of the state of the art of social-organic farming training in the three partner countries was also essential for the definition of the profile. Finally, the third phase of the activity directly involved, through a process of creative discussion, the different stakeholders in the elaboration of policy recommendations to be presented to different target groups in order to support the development of social and organic farming.<< Results >>Concrete results of the SOURCE project are- A glossary of terms focusing on social and organic farming practices;- A document analysing the existing situation of social and organic farming at European level and in the three project partner countries (Italy, Hungary, Greece), including a description of good practices collected through direct interviews.- a document defining the profile of the social farmer, in which the skills and competences needed to support the retraining processes of farmers and would-be farmers in social and organic farming have been collected and analysed;- a syllabus obtained on the basis of the defined profile to be used for designing training initiatives in VET, university and for updating competences at various levels;- a document of policy recommendations, developed with the input of various stakeholders, to help decision-makers to support and improve social organic farming practices through adequate educational policies."