CRANE: The Network of Farms Teaching Citizens
The CRANE project was funded for 2yrs through Erasmus+ strateg
ic
partnerships. The project ran from November 2016 – 2018
Project Partners:
Italy: DINAMICA, An adult vocational training and education centre providing professional training and technical and economic assistance.
Contact: Santina Ruccolo or Carla Cavallini
UK: The Rural Centre, a community organisation promoting social and economic initiatives through EU projects, partnerships and training. The Rural Centre collaborated with Rural Support responsible for social farming in Northern Ireland.
Spain:DEFOIN, providing training for unemployed across all sectors for those already employed.
Contact: Javier Morales Luque
Malta: Genista Research Foundation Consultancy for SMEs, Education providing training on sustainable development and management of Genista nature reserve. Contact: Dr Mark Causon
The aim of the project was to provide farmers involved in multifunctional farms with the skills and competencies to promote and inform people about agriculture through non formal education.
The project used the experiences of farmers across the partner regions who offer services/ activities to develop training to provide farmers with the necessary skills to develop or improve these services/ activities on their farms.
Farmer are the leaders of a slow but inexorable transformation of farms from food production to multifunctional farms linking rural and urban through:
– Education & Training: promoting sustainability, protection of environmental heritage, training through schools, social farms, social inclusion of disadvantaged people
– Events & Activities: outdoor leisure activities, meeting facilities, workshops, entertainment, healthcare
– Hospitality: rural tourism, for individuals and groups, farm hospitality
The project:
- Identified the types of Multi Functional Farms in each region
- Set up a focus group of 40 farmers in each region to explore why they became involved in multifunctional farming, what support they received and what other support they need to develop
- Carried out research to identify the framers competencies and training needs
- Share existing educational tools and training methods throughout the four partner regions
- Created a common model of training specifically developed for the farmer
- Tested and developed training modules throughout the project term
- Compile the final training into an e-book to be shared to improve training and promote the development of Multifunctional farms
Project Meetings:
Italy: 18 & 19 December 2016
Northern Ireland: 16 – 17 April 2018
Spain: 17 – 19 October 2018
Training Sessions:
Bologna, Italy: 11 – 16 December 2017 (5 days for 12 participants. Training for trainers)
Malta: 13 – 18 May 2018 (5 days for 3 participants including farmers from each partner)
CRANE reports and training materials
Reports:
A general overview of agriculture in each region
The current situation of multifunctional farming in each region
The results of the questionnaire with social farmers in each region
Training materials:
Introduction to multifunctional farming
Sustainability in multifunctional farms
Role of the farmers
Agritourism
Social farming
Direct marketing and selling
