Agriculture is one of the most important socio-economic activities in many of the countries of the European Union and a key sector for the development and sustainability of rural areas. In the last decades, rural villages have suffered a dramatic depopulation and also have other difficulties like territorial imbalances and lack of generational relief. Unemployment in rural areas mainly affects services and agriculture.In addition,the following circumstances usually occur in the agricultural sector:• There is a large proportion of small farms, where farmers only devote part of their time to farming, which makes their professionalization difficult.• Spatial dispersion of enterprises hinders access to training• Average age of farmers is very high and with low levels of formal education• Predominance of eventual work. The precariousness of casual workers makes difficult to provide adequate training.• There is an increasing need to incorporate new contents related to management due to changes in the norms of quality or food safety, environment and prevention of occupational risks.Faced with the challenge of operating in a larger but more competitive market, it is necessary to consolidate those factors that help preventing the abandonment of the agrarian activity, to improve the training of its professionals and to increase competitiveness. Among them it is specially important the design of training activities for a productive sector characterized by the lack of training opportunities adapted to their particularities.The main objective of the NARA project has been to contribute to the improvement of the professionalization of young farmers in Europe, especially those operating in the horticultural sector. For doing this, the project partners have worked for 2 years in the development of an online training platform that offers free training in six cross-cutting areas of high interest to the target audience: food security; Post-harvest technologies; Logistics and marketing; Soil, water and by-products; Packaging, and entrepreneurship.The consortium is composed of five entities that have expert knowledge in the different topics that are addressed in the training:• Fundación Parque Científico Tecnológico Aula Dei: expert in food security and post-harvest technologies• Faculty of Agriculture of the University of Catania: expert in techniques of soil management and conservation agriculture• Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology: Expert in environmental technologies, information and logistics• Tecnopackaging: Spanish company expert in packaging for the agri-food sector.• Marketmentoro: Cypriot company expert in entrepreneurship.In the framework of the project, the following activities have been carried out:- Analysis of the related training offer in the countries of the participating partners- Analysis of training demands expressed by the target audience in the different countries- Preparation of a comparative matrix of farmers' competences in the different representated countries - Elaboration of a transnational matrix of the competences acquired by the training offered through the NARA project.- Development of six training modules in the six areas of knowledge mentioned above.- Design and construction of an online training platform hosting the developed contentThe main result of the project has been the design and construction of an online platform that offers open and free training for the horticultural sector. The platform is available through the link: http://training.naraproject.eu/login/index.phpIn addition, other goals have been achieved which have contributed to increase the impact of the project and are detailed below: - Direct contact of the project partners with more 350 farmers and / or students in the agricultural field- Direct contact of the project partners with more than 200 entities, different types of associations and agrarian federations, regional, national institutions, etc., that have collaborated in the dissemination of the project- Good impact of the project in the media and in agri-food magazines- Presentation of the project in the V National Forum of Rural Development, within the framework of the International Fair of Agricultural Machinery 2016 in Zaragoza, España.In the long term, the NARA project will also contribute to:• Encourage the development of new agro-enterprises in rural areas.• Improve the management of the farms and their economic and environmental sustainability.• Increase the profitability of farms and the purchasing power of farmers.• Expand export opportunities and access to new markets.

BIOPLASTICTRAIN developed a 50h training content and a e-learning platform to upgrade plastic transformation technicians skills to be ready to work with biomaterials and bioplastics. The training platform and the contents are available on the internet for free and forever at https://bioplastictrain.eu/ and has the following content:Definition and Characteritics1 Chemical structure, and physical properties2 Mechanical properties and methods to evaluate them3 Plasticizers, nucleating agents and other additives4 Polymers blends, composites and nano-composites5 Biodegradability, composting and sustainability of bioplasticExtrusion Compounding1 Extrusion compounding general concepts2 Formulations and screw configuration3 processing conditions and equipment set up4 typical problems that can arise when working with biopolymersBlow Moulding1 General concepts and main technologies (Blow extrusion moulding and blow injection moulding)2 Formulations and material properties desired for blow moulding technologies3 Processing conditions and equipment set up for different bioplastics4 Typical problems of the blow moulding process and how to solve themInjection Moulding1 General Concepts and Applicative Process Technologies2 Mould & Part Design: Fundamentals for Bioplastic Processing3 Process Validation: DOEs with Simulation Moldflow® Insight’s4 Moulding Defects: Troubleshooting & SolutionsBiocoating1 Sol-Gel process for lacquer synthesis2 Hybrid polymer coating: chemical structure, properties and synthesis3 Characterization of hybrid polymer lacquers and coatings + biodegradability + description of the evaluation methods4 Modification of hybrid polymers e.g. by the addition of fillers and nano-additives and/ or special precursors5 Development and application of biocoatingsBioplastic is according to famous Smithers Pira ranking, within the 5 key technologies towards 2023. According to a recent job market analysis conducted by European Bioplastics, the European bioplastics industry could – with the right framework conditions in place – realise a steep employment growth. By 2025, production capacities of bioplastics within the EU could grow to up to 5.7 million tonnes per year – 10 percent of the European plastics production. This translates to up to 160,000 high skilled jobs that could be created in the European bioplastics sector.At this moment, bioplastics and biopolymers in its infancy, both at a global and European level, but It is expected a growth in the bioplastics market production volume of a 300% from 2015 till 2019, so it seems to be clear that a specialised knowledge on bioplastics and its behaviour through all the value chain actors it is of a general interest.The issue is that, for this moment, there is not any training for that. And the god news is that using bioplastic does not require any modification of actual plastic machines.BIOPLASTICTRAIN was a consortium of five excellent partners, references in the bioplastic sector in Europe, with a vast record of R&D projects, with a finished project in common (Dibbiopack 2012-2016, 7,7M€).Partners took advantage of this past experience and return to European industries and workers their gained experience in public funded R&D projects by developing an Open Educative Resource in the form of training course. The partnership was led by Aitiip the technological center of reference in Europe in the field of plastics processing, as it is the only one that is involved in the whole processing value chain, from material development to manufacturing of functional prototypes.Very remarkable partners like Fraunhofer (Germany), UNIPI (Italy), TECOS (Slovenia) and Tecnopackaging also takes part in the consortium, which is very well balanced in terms of educational entities (UNIPI), companies (Tecnopackaging), research centres (Fraunhofer) and industrial vet providers (Aitiip & Tecos). All partners have previous experience in Eramus+ and European Projects. For dissemination purposes a stakeholders database was created, 2 multiplier events in Slovenia and Spain and participation in different national conferences have been also planned.The training content is available for free on internet for ever, and after project funding end a exploitation strategy has been turned on based on national languages translation (to be carried out after project funding ends). As a summary, BIOPLASTICTRAIN is the perfect online training course for today workers for tomorrow works, based on a transnational and excellent partnership. BIOPLASTICTRAIN is also aligned with European Commission Circular Economy package, which assure its future projection and continuity.

BIOCOMPLACK is a biobased, biodegradable and compostable food packaging with enhances barrier properties. BIOCOMPLACK is a food biopackaging with three main points of innovation: the use of cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs), the multilayer structure and the PLA biopolymer reinforced with organoclays which contain natural food preservatives. These three innovations will enhance the barrier properties to oxygen (more than 100 times compared with common biopackaging) and water vapour as well as will improve the shelf-life of food. BIOCOMPLACK is an alternative to common bio-packaging products that enhances 300% the shelf-life of food. This international project is born in a consortium integrated by two large enterprises (Sapici and Goglio), two small-medium enterprises (SMEs) (NaturePlast and Tecnopackaging) and a research institution (Packlab, University of Milan) from four different countries which together cover the supply chain of the food packaging industry. BIOCOMPLACK will have strong impact in the society and in the environment. BIOCOMPLACK will be an eco-friendly packaging from natural renewable sources instead of fossil fuels, will reduce the plastic packaging waste thanks to its biodegradability in the nature and will generate at the end of its useful life an added value product, the compost (to improve the quality of soils and provide nutrients). Our BIOCOMPLACK solution will provide a loop cycle of sustainability. European Union will be also impacted by BIOCOMPLACK because it will make a substantial contribution to innovation in the European economy, will reduce the import of biopackaging from outside the EU and we will export at international level. This consortium will also be benefited by bringing into the market the BIOCOMPLACK food packaging in 36 months. The profitability of the project presents for the first 5 years a ROI of 2.47 and the pay-back of the project will be achieved after 2 years and 9 months after the beginning of the commercialization

BORN is a bio-based low-cost polymer formulation that can be used to fabricate biodegradable thermal-resistant food packaging, as well as a variety of products that require resistance to high temperature. This is a groundbreaking innovation for biodegradable and biobased polymers that can generally withstand temperatures not higher than 50-55 °C. BORN material is produced via safe and sustainable by design, using nature inspired polymers and additives. The latter mainly consist of novel and patentable crystal nucleating agent, whose inclusion in formulations allows crystallization upon industrial processing of polymers that are otherwise amorphous. This leads to improved resistance to high temperatures (100 °C) and allows to foresee a portfolio of applications for BORN, which, for food packaging, may include compostable microwavable containers for ready-to-eat meals, as well as low-cost cups for hot beverages. BORN may be used also in agriculture (eg. filler for mulching films), for reusable consumer goods, as well as for all applications where resistance to high temperatures is mandatory. The novel BORN material will be circular, biobased, biodegradable, compostable, suitable for food contact, recyclable, as well as of low cost. Currently, there is no material and no relative technology that simultaneously fulfills all these features. This will be a breakthrough in the production and transformation of biodegradable and biobased plastics, able to disrupt the market of biobased food packaging. The proposal spans the whole BORN lifecycle, from conception and birth of sustainable additives, to design and formulation of novel sustainable materials, followed by production of lab scale prototypes and testing of their suitability for food packaging, up to their end of life. Biodegradation will be validated in open, controlled and extreme environments, also including azard assessment of materials at their end-of-life.