<< Objectives >>NECTAR project (New Education Transition in Agroecology and Rurality) must achieve shared pedagogical activities and compared reflective analysis on agro-ecological transition teaching between France and Austria. We want to connect high schools and work on key concepts : soil fertility, local food and autonomy, agroforestry and local seeds. We want to tackle learners urgent societal issues and develop tools for the teachers who must understand how learners are learning to be more efficient.<< Implementation >>Two kind of activities are going to implement : seminaries and exploration and implementation of pedagogical practices to compare agro-ecological transition teaching in France and in Austria. Through the teaching of urgent societal issues like the use of glyphosate, the footprint, the food autonomy, we will analyse and compare constructivist pedagogies in both country. Every common teaching topic will be present and explain in action sheets also the seminaries proceedings.<< Results >>We expect learners be able to embrace sustainability as a new paradigm and make a change. We expect draw more colleagues into the education and agro-ecological transitions through new tools. This small scale project could be a first step to engage a research action between the University College for Agrarian and Environmental Pedagogy and the CEZ - Bergerie Nationale which both are working on educative transitions and constructivist pedagogies in agro-ecological transition teaching.

Extensive livestock exploitation models are crucial for the sustainable maintenance of important rural areas in Europe. These models are the paradigm of ecological, social and economic sustainability. These models fight against depopulation in rural areas and have a positive impact in animal wellbeing and human health compared to other non-extensive models. These models supply consumers with quality foodl products in many EU territories and promote the sustainable development of our society. The future of such livestock exploitation models, currently under threat due to the effects of climate change and administrative barriers (droughts, animal health problems, increase in parasites, administrative limitations for transhumance, etc...) depends on the availability and capacity of extensive Shepherds. But the problem is that it is increasingly difficult to find well trained shepherds that have the knowledge and experience to face all the aspects involved in extensive livestock shepherding. Shepherds are an ageing social group, the younger ones lack proper training, education and experience and nowadays there is no motivation to become a shepherd due to the low social standing and lack of a specific professional training offer and The shepherds – key actors and basis for extensive livestock – carry out innumerable functions in rural, disadvantaged and under populated areas.Although they are an important element in rural societies, shepherds lack social recognition, and they don’t have access in many cases to a well-structured, methodical and validated training for the sustainable management of extensive exploitations. The project idea arises after a need analysis of the current situation, being the most important problems, among others:•Difficulties to find professional shepherds; •Lack of more structured and updated training and education offers adapted to current needs and threats, as well as adapted flexible training tools for current or future Shepherds.•Lack of motivation to become a shepherd; EU4SHEPHERDS seeks to improve and update the training offer for extensive shepherds taking into account current barriers (administrative mainly…) threads (new climate scenario and its consequences) and opportunities (ecological production trends, agro tourism, etc…) to ensure a sustainable maintenance of extensive livestock exploitations (economical, social and environmental) giving them tools to become resilient. The project will adapt the training methods (both for trainers and trainees) for a work-based learning taking into consideration current barriers and logistical problems for extensive shepherds (many of them are distributed along rural isolated areas) in order to ensure the sustainability of the profession and of extensive livestock exploitations. Furthermore, the project will provide a training platform designed for extensive shepherds (not used to complicated interfaces or texts) and will promote the use of digital tools for training.These objectives will be satisfied with the development of three IOs (New curricula for professional shepherds; New flexible training methodology for trainers; New on-line adapted training platform for extensive shepherds)Although Shepherds are the main objective of the project, we can say that trainers involved in the training of extensive shepherds are the key element for making possible the needed change in the training of professional shepherds, and therefore, trainers are the main target group of key project actions (IOs and training workshops).This project faces a common problem of many rural European areas, especially in countries where extensive livestock models have an important presence and effect in local societies. Most part of these countries are represented in this project. The EU4Shepherds partners represent all actors needed to develop the project efficiently and to implement the results successfully, giving special importance to the link between VET entities and the needs of extensive livestock exploitations, in order to include the necessary curricula and methodologies for trainers to implement in a further phase a certifiable shepherd training course.

The Andes Lupin (Lupinus mutabilis, tarwi) grows excellently in marginal lands due to it´s excellent foraging characteristics having the ability to fix nitrogen, mobilise soil phosphate and have low nutritional requirements for cultivation. For the increased biomass needed in Europe in coming years and decades we cannot rely on the most fertile lands, which is currently allocated to food production, we need to increase the yield from marginal lands. There the lupin varieties are preponderant, the one providing highest yield (up to 80 ton/ha) is Lupinus mutabilis. Varieties can be chosen for giving this high yield of green silage or high yield of seeds contain more than 20% oil, more than 40% protein and the remainder carbohydrates are mainly oligosaccharides characterized as “prebiotics”. Andes lupin can be grown as a summer crop in N-central Europe conditions and as winter crop in Mediterranean conditions. Breeding and cropping research is performed in the LIBBIO project for maximizing the yield and value of lupin agriculture in different European marginal lands conditions, with respect to both the farmers and biorefineries. Pre-industrial processing is developed and optimized for the lupin, properties of the different fractions analysed, their advantage for different industrial use evaluated, and a few products developed as an example. With respect to environmental impact the lupin is expected to be superior. It does not need much fertilizer, it enriches the soil with nitrogen and phosphate and is therefore expected to be excellent for crop rotation and soil regeneration. These properties will be evaluated further in the project along with techno-economic and agricultural viability and effect on farm and biorefinery income.

FRAMEwork is constructed based on the Farmer Cluster approach successfully implemented in the UK. FRAMEWORK will enrich and innovate existing Farmer Clusters by liaising with local and (inter)national stakeholder groups, and set up new, multi-actor, Farmer Clusters in different cropping systems in Europe, based on existing collaborations. The Farmer Clusters will be united in a European-wide self-sustaining network and linked with the Citizen Observatory and Information Hub that will facilitate farmer and citizen-based collection and sharing of harmonised, high-quality information on biodiversity and farming, and develop engaging online and offline activities to amplify awareness and understanding of biodiversity and Biodiversity Sensitive Farming across different stakeholders in Europe. The scientific contribution to these citizen-based activities will deliver the following outcomes: 1) Advanced ecological understanding of the drivers of biodiversity change in agricultural landscapes; 2) a selection of best-practice biodiversity-sensitive management by farmers based on their local requirement; 3) validated methods for biodiversity targeting, monitoring and evaluation and 4) private and public incentives to foster biodiversity-sensitive farming as a public good. Furthermore, FRAMEwork will assess the effectiveness of the Farmer Cluster approach to develop and implement place and system-specific biodiversity-sensitive farming practices and evaluate the economic and environmental performance, delivering a permanent on-line evaluation tool on the Citizen Observatory and Information Hub. The TRL of the Decision Support Tools ranges from 3-5, where improvements are foreseen for the TRL5 Decision Support Tool, while the ones at TRL3 will be brought to TRL4-5 through testing and improvements in the Farmers Clusters. FRAMEwork will be innovative in the way in which it will implement EU ethics, data protection and gender regulations.