NOTE: “chef” is used for the colloquial “cook”, “executive chef” for the colloquial “kitchen manager”Context/Background:An average large-scale kitchen in the communal catering (schools, staff restaurants, hospitals, nursing homes etc) in the project countries processes annually approx. 200 t of food corresponding to ca. 700 menu meals daily. E.g. in Germany, 18 million citizens depend daily on the communal catering, in Austria 2.5 million, in Italy 5,5 million, in Czechia 1.63 million alone in the schools. In monetary terms, alone for Italy, this equals an annual turnover of 6 billion Euro.This immense turnover of food, together with the ensuing waste amounts and energy consumption, calls for maximal resource efficiency in public large-scale kitchens and its proper outward communication. However, executive chefs and chefs of public large-scale kitchens are currently not or hardly at all trained in sustainable foods use and menu design, waste prevention, energy efficiency and communication&marketing.Objective:To design a training (training materials and training concept) for ex-cathedra teaching and self-study for executive chefs and chefs in public large-scale kitchens in Foods Use, Sustainable Menu Design, Waste Prevention, Energy, Communication&Marketing, in English, German, Czech, ItalianPartners:All 4 partners have long experience in training and implementing innovative projects with large-scale kitchens regarding the 5 Modules. Their specific expertise is:AT/lead: Ressourcen Management Agentur (RMA): energy efficiency, waste prevention, sustainable foods use, sustainable menu designCZ: University of South Bohemia-Faculty of Agriculture: organic farming, organic foods use and value chains, sustainable menu design, school large-scale kitchensDE: Thüringer Ökoherz eV: sustainable lifestyle in terms of foods use, strengthening of ecological agriculture and organic foodIT: Associazione Italiana Agricolture Biologica (AIAB)-Liguria: organic foods use, PR with administration and general public on organic farming, communication, marketing, school&kindergarten kitchensActivities:1.Drafting curricula for vocational training of chefs and executive chefs in energy efficiency, waste prevention, foods use, sustainable menu, communication&marketing in public large-scale kitchens (IO1)2.Workshop design & test (IO2): development of a training concept and testing IO1 and the training concept3.Translation of the English IO1 into the 3 national languages: German, Italian, Czech4.Adjustment of IO1 to the national specifics of the project countries5.Expert consultations to ensure the training quality6.Incorporation of the experts’ feedback into IO1 after items 2 and 5, finalisation of the workshop design7.Dissemination of the training among target groups, stakeholders, multipliers8.Ensuring sustainability of the training after project conclusion9.Ongoing contact to the national authorities towards a certification of the training within EQF/NQFResults:The achieved results consist of:•IO1: 1728 slides, 888 pages script, 1289 pages handbook, 446 pages training folder for the 5 Modules; extra checklist (Energy, but applicable to all Modules); all in English and for Austria, Germany, Czechia, Italy•IO2: a training concept and implementation guide in 4 languages (EN/DE/IT/CZ)•2 brochures, 4 newsletters per country, info flyer•8 information events; extra events: 1 Austria, 4 Italy•3 expert meetings (Austria, Italy, Czechia), 5 expert consultations (Germany); extra expert/dissemination meetings: 1 (7 participants) and 8 expert consultations Austria, 5 Czechia•LOIs by multiplying users for implementing the training: 5 Austria, 2 Germany, 1 Italy, 4 CzechiaLonger-term Benefits/Impact:These benefits and impact form 3 categories:Educational:In view of the lifelong learning principle, the key staff of pubic large-scale kitchens, executive chefs and chefs, are enabled to acquire knowledge, skills and competences upgrading their professional value and improving their position at work or at the labour market.Environmental:Ecological benefits by applying the new knowledge in large-scale kitchens are: reduced food waste by 20-30%; reduced other waste through prevention: by 10-20%; reduced CO2 emissions by energy saving, using local and organic foods and fresh cooking instead of convenience products: by ca.30%.Socio-Economic:Positive economic effects after implementation of the training in large-scale kitchens are reduced waste disposal costs: up to 10-20%, energy costs: by 10%. Up to 75% monetary savings are achievable through freshly prepared meals instead of using convenience products or cook&chill, with better food quality. Strengthened local value chains by use of local produce/labour is another benefit of long-term effect. Also, marketing activities can bring 10-15% new customers approving of and loyal to such measures, and thus ensure the sustainability of these public large-scale kitchens.

<< Background >>This project concept was born from a double observation. The first is the current challenges some young people in difficulties are facing: unemployment, educational failure, lack of reference, social and economic barriers jeopardizing their inclusion in the professional and educational worlds. The second observation related to the current environmental issue, and the need for sustainable agriculture to be a driver in the fight against climate change. To succeed in this transition, organic agriculture and agroecology need more human labour but few people turn to these professions.So, on one side there are young people who are Not in Employment, Education or Training (NEET) and suffer a deep lack of reference and on the other side there are many job opportunities in the sustainable agricultural sector.This project aims to address the needs of NEET young people which entails to reconnect with a professional environment where they can learn and gain confidence in a safe place.This project also addresses the needs of rural areas that lack dynamism and are little valued altogether with the farmers’ needs to connect with young people to pass on their skills and knowledge and to make their agricultural enterprises more sustainable.But above all it considers the youth workers needs to have specific tools adapted to the needs of NEET young people in order to better support them. More precisely, tools to accompany them towards novel jobs in the field of sustainable and social farming and successfully increase their employability. All these needs will be addressed in a social agriculture Erasmus+ project: PROPAGRI.<< Objectives >>The overall objective of this project is to strengthen employability of NEET young people into the agricultural world through the development of an innovating training targeting youth workers and trainers. This will be reached through the following specific objectives:-Provide tools to youth workers to increase the awareness of NEET young people about the opportunities offered by sustainable agricultural professions.-Develop an innovative training which provides young people with basic skills and knowledge in organic and/or environmental-friendly farming techniques tackling climate change.-Increase the attractiveness of the farming sector and ensure sufficient working capacities for sustainable farming development in Europe.-Increase the interest and ability of farmers to welcome and teach NEET young people sustainable farming techniques and knowledge.<< Implementation >>The activities of the project are structured around the production of the 4 project results:PR1- The first project result consists in developing material for the theoretical part of the training. The activities will be to specify and produce the pedagogical framework and the theoretical content and then to experiment the courses in France, Italy and Germany with a group of 15 NEET people per country.PR2- The second set of activities aims at creating an online matching platform in order to promote the meeting between NEET young people and farmers based on matching criteria.PR3- The following activities consists in the development and implementation of guideline to support youth workers in the setting up of small internships to allows young people to discover the farm life for 5 days. A training session for farmers will be developed and tested with 5 farmers in France, Italy and Germany each. Farmers will then welcome 15 NEET young people on their farms to experiment the small internships.PR4- This novel training will be concluded by an orientation workshop, testing tailor-made tools for youth workers to accompany NEET young people towards sustainable agricultural jobs. All these activities aim to implement the whole training destined to youth workers, which is expected to fit with young people and farmers’ needs.<< Results >>This project will produce some tangible results which are:-Theoretical training material: a written and visual material which is the support for theoretical courses on sustainable agriculture and its linkage with the environment and climate change.-Matching platform: an online platform to connect young people and farmers, which will remain available at least 5 years after the end of the project.-Practical training guidelines: a guide containing all the necessary information to implement small practical internships of young people hosted by farmers.-Orientation toolkit: a set of tools to implement a powerful orientation workshop and solid guidance follow-up of the young people.The PROPAGRI project implements a training with guidance materials that will be reused and reappropriated by social workers and trainers working with NEET young people all around Europe. It will allows the project partners and then stakeholders from both the social and agricultural worlds to develop their skills in social farming.

<< Objectives >>The Farm to Fork strategy aims to increase organic production to 25% of total agricultural land by 2030. To achieve this, an educational program - coupled with methodological guidline and educational material, as proposed by this project can support the provision of qualified professionals. The applied action- and multi-actor approach in the project contributes to the climate change mitigation policy intention through boosting organic production.<< Implementation >>The activities are aimed at creating the planned results of the project and fulfilling its goals. The key activity is the creation of innovative educational materials, supported by intensive cooperation with experts from the organic farming and education sector. This will make it possible to create a comprehensive chain of materials addressing the issue of the conversion to organic farming, which will be easy to use and multiply.<< Results >>The curriculum on organic conversion, farmers survey and evaluation on practical experiences in conversion to organic farming, pedagogical guide, a set of educational modules and related educational texts for higher education and handbook for training practitioners will be the main project results. These outcomes will be used directly in education and at the same time will allow users to easily create their own innovative educational materials in the field of conversion to organic farming.

Public catering plays an important role in modern public food service provision and thus contributes to every-day well-being of a very large number of citizens. The central concern of public catering has traditionally been nutritional; recently, new emphasis has been placed on environmental, local economy and sensory aspects of the public meal. In many European countries there is a considerable public attention on public providing of daily meals and increasing demand on public organic food procurement especially for youth. There are many reasons, why the integration of organic food become a great importance since last years. Processing of regional organic food in public catering service is an important factor to enhance regional supply chains, and helps developing organic markets on local regional and national level and thus contributing to sustainable development of rural areas.The overall aim of the project is to contribute to sustainable and healthy nutrition in public catering facilities through bringing more sustainable way of using resources into public serving outlets through the development of new and innovative ways of teaching and learning about “organic cooking in public settings”. Specific objectives of the project were to develop a. an ECVET-based curriculum for training of “organic cooks” esp. for public catering settings, b. an interactive IT-tool to organic cooking in public kitchens and c. a Handbook dealing with introducing organic and local food in public settings.The partner consortium consists of 6 partners from 5 countries. The consortium covered a broader spectrum of partners active in different sectors: University of South Bohemia - Faculty of Agriculture (CZ) as a research and educational institution dealing with topics of sustainable agriculture, alternative systems of farming; Vestyjland Folk High School (DK) skilled in providing courses to organic cooking and farming and running organic canteen and organic garden; AIAB Liguria (IT) - association bringing together farmers, practitioners, experts, researchers and consumers intensivelly cooperating with 18 AIAB-offices acting in different regions of Italy; Thuringian Consumer Advice Center - Network Unit for School Catering (DE) with rich experiences in advising and cooperation with public cantees; Center of Environmental Activities (SK) – non-profit organisation experienced in cooperation projects with school canteens - implementation of organic food in the school canteens and in environmental education; project coordinator Thüringer Ökoherz (DE) promoting sustainable ways of living and the advancement of ecological agriculture in Thuringia and Germany, experienced in coordination and participation in several European projects. Following main project activities have been realised in order to reach planned results and impacts by the project:- Development of the cook.org curriculum - an innovative educational material for complementary qualification of organic cooks in public settings based on ECVET-standards. The training of “Organic cooks in Public Settings” intends to enlarge and deepen the classical training with focus on using organic food and running a kitchen in a sustainable way. - Development of the web-based cook.org IT-tool with integrated RecipeApp, supporting the integration of sustainable cooking with organic and regional products into daily meals in public kitchens. It provides knowledge and proposes concrete actions and recipes for practicing of organic, seasonal and regional cooking evaluating the sustainability of planned menus. - Development of Handbook “Greening public canteens”, introducing most important basic information regarding the integration of organic, regional and seasonal cooking in public kitchens. The handbook provides assistance for public kitchens in a conversion process. One of the main objectives of the handbook is to convey the knowledge and experience about how public canteens can find the way to sustainability, especially by using more organic, regional and seasonal products in their daily practice.All mentioned project outputs are free available in 6 European languages.- Realisation of the pilot course in order to test applicability and the quality of developed outputs as well as to establish an exchange between the project partners and representatives of the target groups. - Realisation of events for multipliers in all partner countries aimed on different target groups to promote project results as well as to initiate the cooperation and possibilities for future implementation of project results into educational as well as cooking practice. - Awareness raising about sustainable nutrition and importance of integration of organic food into daily meals in public settings through multiplier events and different dissemination channels.In all participating countries, the project results are in use or in the process of further development respectively integration into existing systems.

Social farming (SF) is a way of inclusion within a green environment. Social farmers are farmers that open their farms for vulnerable people. Depending on the client group (CG) social farms can offer work places where people can find a useful day-activity, work rehabilitation and training or place to be in a pleasant green environment. Therefore “Social Farming is an innovative approach that brings together two concepts: multipurpose farming and social services/health care at local level. It makes a contribution in the ambit of agricultural production to the well-being and the social integration of people with particular needs.” (EESC 2012)The way SF is implemented depends mainly on the CG. For instance, older people with dementia will generally be coming to the farm to have a pleasant day activity and the goals may include an improved sense of well-being and quality of life. Meanwhile young people with behavioral problems are possibly looking for possibilities to learn new skills and for experience of being in a pro-social and nurturing environment. People with mental health difficulties or intellectual disabilities might either look for possibilities of doing a meaningful job or alternative forms of therapy available within the farm environment. A refugee might look for work experience and a paid job that he/she is able to do, even if there is a language barrier.Consequently, best practice in including and supporting people in SF varies strongly depending on the CG. SF also brings together disciplines and professions that normally have little in common: agriculture, horticulture, forestry on one side, social work and pedagogy on the other side. This project considers higher education (HE) as a tool for improving SF and thereby empowering rural areas and including people with special needs all over Europe. While a growing number of the HE Institutions throughout Europe have discovered SF as a concept and a valuable initiative, no teaching material about CG specific knowledge in SF is currently available. This project wants to fill this gap and aims to further develop and deepen HE about SF by focusing on CGs, their needs and the way of knowledge transfer to future social farmers.What are the needs of CGs like the elderly, refugees, youth with special needs, people suffering from addiction and other mental health issues, offenders or a person with an intellectual disability? How can a farm and farming activities be helpful in meeting various needs? What do farmers, social workers/pedagogues, case managers and other stakeholders need to pay attention to? How can farmers use the farm environment in the optimal way to stimulate the development of CGs?To answer these questions and to implement them into teaching material for HE, is the core mission of this project. To realize this task, interviews with representatives of all CGs will be conducted. From within the countries involved, key services will be asked to contribute with their knowledge and experience, including: services who work with people with intellectual disabilities or with mental health difficulties; youth services; associations of senior citizens or services working with older people; other relevant social service providers; and experienced social farmers. In addition to this, members of the consortium will undertake participatory observation at social farms. Therefore, the development of teaching material will be based on practical experience from working on the farm together with the farmer and people with special needs.The teaching material will give an overview on the most important CGs in SF and describe how SF can support each group in a more nuanced and targeted way than has been available heretofore. Methods of social work and social pedagogy will be further developed to methods usable in farming. Vice versa farming activities will be transferred to client appropriate activities. In addition, this project wants to go one step further by “translating” this academic material into a simpler handbook and online tool for farmers who would like to make their farm a place of inclusion or for social workers who are looking for ways of using farming as a tool of social work or pedagogy. These materials will not use academic language, but will instead use everyday language and provide short and easy to use guides which can act as an ongoing and accessible resource for practitioners - farmers and social workers. A mixed partnership is the recipe for connecting higher education with consultation of practitioners. In this project, HE institutions (coming either from the field of agriculture or social work) and SF associations (that take a stand for SF as well as the demands of farmers and people with special needs) have teamed up:Thüringer Ökoherz e.V., coordinator (DE) University of Applied Science Neubrandenburg (DE)University of South Bohemia (CZ)Jabok Academy (CZ)Social Farming Ireland (IE)Dutch Federation of Care Farmers (NL)