The ECO-MOTIVE project was aimed at providing training tools for disadvantaged and unemployed adults to provide sustainable development solutions to entrenched rural poverty. The roots of poverty and social disadvantage are complex, and there is no wholesale solution within the scope of any single project, but we believe that one starting point for building opportunities for disadvantaged, low-skilled rural people is to explore individual human development (both life and employment skills) in connection with agriculture-based training opportunities. The ecological approach offers multiple benefits, including a recognition of the central importance of the social context of agriculture and its resource-efficient nature that complies with the long-term strategic goal of the sustainable natural resource management. A number of local government initiatives have started up over the last few years in Hungary, aimed at developing skills and knowledge appropriate for rural areas in basic agricultural areas. At the same time community employment programmes („Közmunka program”) have begun, in an attempt to address entrenched rural unemployment. Unfortunately there is still a lack of capacity at local government level that justifies the need for employment trainings, reskilling programmes and human development resources on which our project focused.The ECO-Motive project provided the training background, including technical knowledge and skills coupled with knowledge transfer methodology and social sensitization and motivation practices to provide user groups (primarily local authorities, and their programme staff) with course materials and training modules for trainers (practitioners, unemployed adults with an agricultural background, or with working experience in agriculture) by preparing capacity to train trainers of disadvantaged/ unemployed/low skilled adults (end-users) of rural areas in the field of small-scale ecological production. In order to facilitate the training of trainers we prepared the following 5 modules, which constitute together the main intellectual output of our project: social sensitivity skills and motivation, ecological small-scale farming (introduction), ecological small animal husbandry, ecological vegetable production, ecological fruit production. Each module includes applied pedagogical methods and submitted for licensing, forming together the complex training-the-trainers curriculum for ecological small scale production under the title “Competence development training for trainers of disadvantaged target groups by deepening ecological small-scale farming knowledge and developing equal opportunities approach”.The curriculum is accompanied by training-the-trainers teaching materials that facilitate the teaching work of trainers in ecological farming. The 6 distinct sections (corresponding to the curriculum modules and the ‘Collection of games and methodologies for trainers’) of the teaching material provide professional knowledge based on the well-established good practices appropriate for teaching approached in a holistic way.The end-users course material supports the learning of end-users during trainings in ecological small-scale production facilitated by trained trainers. The content of the end-users targeted course materials are closely linked to the accompanying training-the-trainers teaching materials. The end-user course material, which is rich in graphic illustration for the purpose of easy understanding, is produced as self-contained teaching aid, in order to facilitate its use.The well-established good-practices incorporated into the professional context are transferred from partners according to their area of expertise. In the project 7 prominent institutes with different institutional structures participated from 4 European countries (Hungary,Romania,Spain,UK). The common feature of all partner institutions is their focus on rural unemployment and social disadvantage related to agricultural activities. Pilot courses (18 day) organized for future trainers and end-users (6 days) during the project lifetime provided the opportunity to test out the transferred solutions before they are incorporated into the final project outputs. Localization mechanism ensured that all elements of exchanged, transferred and developed best-practises became adoptable under Hungarian conditions.Our goal with the project was to provide tools to local authorities to initiate training in small scale organic farming practices which leads into the creation of, not just utilising the manpower, but providing human development opportunities, which can lead to longer-term solutions. We believe that the project has important impacts at all levels including the social dimension, as the trained trainers influence the thinking of the decision makers in local authorities and by becoming acquainted with the global, holistic approach of organic farming they also influence higher level decision-making.

BACKGROUNDThe rapid evolution of technology brings a new challenge to the education system, and problems for the future, as agriculture not only requires agrarian engineers and IT professionals, but also the intersection of the two.Today, employers require workers-to-be to have the key competences that are necessary for employment, economic changes are happening very quickly, so students need to be prepared to be able to adjust to new areas, roles and even new jobs at any time. In response to this, lifelong learning is an essential for tomorrow’s workforce. Agriteach 4.0 project is intended to help with exactly this. AIMSWithin the Agriteach 4.0 project, a free online curriculum was developed in cooperation with Czech, English, Macedonian and Hungarian partners in 3 modules: Teaching agricultural informatics in agricultural vocational training for VET teachers and agricultural advisers and was tested in a pilot course.OUTPUTSO1 e-Competence Map of Agricultural workers for Agriculture 4.0O1 aimed to build a general state-of-art overview about the ICT uptake of agricultural companies in the target countries, the present level of Agriculture 4.0 relative to the EU trend, and about the offer and demand in the agricultural workforce with special focus on the digital competences of the workers. A survey was conducted among farmers. The main goal was to ascertain the level of knowledge about ICT tools and precision farming methods among the farmers and its level of utilization. In Hungary 64 and in Macedonia 11 representatives of agricultural enterprises took part in the survey.O2 Training needs of Teachers preparing students for Agriculture 4.0O2 provided detailed information about the supply side, i.e. how vocational education must meet the needs of demands for existing and future Agriculture 4.0 skills. In the survey 114 Hungarian and 44 Macedonian vocational teachers participated. The survey result shows that the vast majority of teachers have already heard of, but do not use, agricultural ICT tools and agriculture 4.0 and confirmed that the current curriculum does not include advanced knowledge of e-agriculture and related technologies, though that would be very important.O3 Syllabus and learning content for AgriTeach 4.0Based on the results of the survey a syllabus and learning content was elaborated. The authoring and review of all content was established a strong collaboration of the partnership. The contents was authored and reviewed in English, and translated into the national languages (HU, MK)• Module 1: Teaching in the 21th century • Module 2: European Strategies and Initiatives for E-Agriculture • Module 3: Digital Systems within Agriculture 4.0O4 AgriTeach 4.0 Learning Management SystemThe project implemented an e-learning system, based on the open source Moodle, where the curriculum is available in 3 languages (HU, MK, EN). This incorporates the functionalities of learning and content management. The completion of the modules is progressing at the pace of the pilot training, and the learning process is facilitated by tutors. The course contains the following elements:• course introduction• the aims of the modules• learning guide• curriculum• practice exercises• module assessment• forum• final assessmentWEB: http://moodle.agriteach.hu/O5 AgriTeach 4.0 further training program for VET teachersPilot training was launched with the participation of agricultural VET teachers in the two target countries. The training started with an information day, which introduces the planned training modules, scheduling and the online learning interface. The goal was to create an effective learning community. 51 Hungarian and 16 Macedonian teachers successfully completed the training.O6 Planning for valorization and sustainabilityThe aim of this IO is to ensure sustainability of the project in every partner country. i)Project produced a digital textbook based on the content developed during the project in three languages - EN, HU and MK. ii)The partnership elaborated a copyright agreement.iii) Every partner summarized experiences and benefits gained during the project and planed for the sustainability beyond the project lifetime.IMPACTIn Hungary, 63 participants took part in pilot training out of 22 VET schools and 20 teachers form 7 VET schools in Macedonia.The completed learning content is available on the Moodle interface and in the form of an electronic book. A survey was carried out for potential transferring of the project results which shows that the curriculum can be used in the VET, higher and adult education of the participating countries after the project duration. Galamb József Agricultural Vocational Secondary School starting from the school year 2020/2021, launches the specialization related to precision farming from the new OKJ, which is based on the curriculum prepared in the framework of the Agriteach 4.0 project.