Urban Farming

"<< Background >>One of the most important initiatives of the EU is the European Green Deal and the ""greening"" of the economy. The main scope of this project and main reason was to address the main principles of this initiative was not only to inform, but basically to enroll as many citizens as possible to environmental activities and in parallel to develop a series of specific VET skills in environmental activities. Taking into account two factors: (a) most of the potential trainees are located in large urban areas and (b) the quantity of information related to environmental issues is huge, the partnership proposed this VET project activities which are already performed in the USA and Canada and has given extremely significant results regarding the development of VET skills in environment issues.Needs addressed were: Dissemination of EU policies to a wide target group of citizens, information climate change and environmental concerns, impact of agricultural activities to the improvement of the quality of life for urban citizens, role of apiculture in food security as a major concern for governments and citizens on a global level.<< Objectives >>The main objective of the project was to motivate the citizens living in the urban areas of Greece and Turkey, through the actions took place to understand the concept of climate change and the challenge origin from it. The involvement of a wide age range of citizens in this project provided as described in the relevant section (see target group analysis), the opportunity to understand in practice and real life the consequences of this challenge, instead of a non effective theoretical approach.Understanding the prospect to establish a “greener” environment through small scale agricultural farming in urban environments and the role of bees for pollination through the establishment of urban apiaries.<< Implementation >>The activities took place during project implementation were (a) agricultural farming oriented to gardens with productive plants suitable for food production and species suitable for beekeeping complementary to the activity of urban beekeeping, and (b) urban beekeeping, beekeeping adopted to urban and suburban areas. Both activities implemented according to international standards developed in US and Europe for such activities. Both highlighted the concept of climate change and accompanied with the relevant supportive material for training and dissemination.<< Results >>During project implementation the following results produced:Project LogoUrban Horticulture manual in English, Greek and Turkish. Available at: https://urbaf.eu/index.php/portfolio/horticulture/Urban Beekeeping manual in English, Greek and Turkish. Available at: https://urbaf.eu/index.php/portfolio/apiculture/Training material for urban horticulture in English, Greek and TurkishTraining material for urban beekeeping English, Greek and TurkishTraining platform for the Greek version of the training material (e-learning)Training manual for Greek trainees by e-learning. Respective training in Turkiye took place with natural presence.Webpage of the project, www.urbaf.euYouTube channel available at youtube.com/@urbaf, where all the training videos produced during the project for training and dissemination purposes are available. It should be mentioned that most of the material was produced by the partners especially those referring to beekeeping. An apiary was set in Athens - Cholargos for this purpose.Urban beekeeping documentary (https://youtu.be/I6N4tIDXp-8?si=3FlTm_sZFLDcqPMm)Publication in local media promoting the dissemination eventsLetter to the Ministry of Rural Development and Food (letter attached in other docs)"