Learning Agriculture Nourishing Development

<< Background >>We applied for the LAND project because the partnership wanted to promote rural culture, heritage and practices in schools located in rural areas. The project addressed three major needs.Firstly, climate change and environmental disasters lead us to consider the importance of preserving rural culture as a way to respect the ecosystem and promote sustainable development. This approach encourages new generations to play an active role in safeguarding the planet by using means that are connected with their region of origin.Secondly, depopulation of rural areas remains a major problem nowadays, while continued restructuring and modernisation of EU agriculture is placing a heavy burden on many rural areas. The solution is to promote and develop rural sustainable culture right from school, emphasizing the importance and richness of rural culture to reverse the flow from the countryside to the city.Thirdly, the COVID-19 pandemic has created problems of indifference and loneliness among children and young people, especially in already isolated geographical areas. To escape from this isolation, we promoted learning from nature and socialize in a healthy way, as well as how to be more connected with nature.<< Objectives >>LAND has proposed a paradigm shift that considers rural areas not as a limit for youth development, but as an opportunity for children to benefit from the economic, social and historical value of their region. We wanted to achieve that by promoting rural culture, local agricultural and artisanal activities in primary schools located in rural and remote areas by creating a link between youth and their territory of origin. Partners also wanted to achieve and promote the knowledge of different rural realities in Europe through exchanges.<< Implementation >>We implemented three main project activities:1. Course: partners have designed and implemented a course in their partner school to promote rural culture, heritage and sustainable agricultural practices to increase children's awareness of their local rural tradition and to learn the rural background of the other country. 2. Exchange: we have organised two exchange trips among school children, school staff and the personnel from the organization promoting rural culture. Children had a first-hand experience of parallels and differences of the other country’s rural heritage and practices.3. Book: we have created a final online multilingual publication that reunites experiences from the course and the exchange.<< Results >>The concrete outputs of the project have been the training course on rural culture documented by specific reports with photos; the final publication that contains all the experiences done by the children during the course and the exchange visits; a website with all modules of the training courses done in Italy and Belgium.