"Agricultural markets and farming business changed considerably over recent decades. EU Farmers are facing a need to improve their economic and socio-economic situation. From entrepreneurial view financing is an important task for the farmer besides production and marketing. Decisions in financing - may it be ""traditional"" or innovative - have long term influence on the farm, its liquidity and its income.Especially for young farmers taking over the business of their parents or simply aiming at business development it is very important to have a solid financial basis for their agricultural businesses.Financing affects the sustainability of the single farm (together with effects on and importance for income security) as well as it addresses sustainable development of rural areas as a whole.Innovative financing exists on niche level, but a lot of possibilities are not widely known. To make good decisions in the field of innovative financing farmers need to be equipped with more skills, knowledge and competence, and with experience from successful practice. It is a huge challenge for the farmers to:(1) Keep the business running in a profitable & sustainable way.(2) Respect societal demands towards agricultural production which are increasing constantly.(3) Get financed in adequate and sufficient dimension.There are possibilities to fulfill all 3 aspects at the same time.With FARMINFIN project, we aim at developing a training programme that is going to equip farmers with the needed competences for the implementation of innovative financing means tailored adequately for his own farm, entrepreneurial approach and personal circumstances.In addition to this, we also aim at reaching the following objectives:- Foster professional handling of innovative financing means by farmers.- Strengthen economic and socio-economic viability of family farms.- Deliver added value to rural development.These objectives will be achieved by providing to young farmers a training programme based on the OER approach and on case studies about sustainable and innovative financing ways for farming sector enterprises.The training system will be made of:- A guide about alternative ways of financing in the farming sector.- A set of 12 case studies gathering best practices related to alternative ways of financing in the farming sector in the involved countries;- Training curriculum and training modules providing the knowledge needed to successfully implement a sustainable business initiative in the farming sector.The training materials (in English, Swedish, Czech, German, Spanish, Italian and French) will be fully available free of charges on the project training platform and will be also uploaded on OER repositories (such as www.oercommons.org) making them available to an even wider audience.The FARMINFIN consortium is made of the following partners:CEJA (BE): CEJA is the voice of Europe's next generation of farmers, representing some 2 million young people through a membership comprised of 32 recognized national member organizations in 23 EU member states and an associate member organisation from Serbia.HuL (DE): HuL is an independent private body focused on agricultural family enterprises. HuL is consulting in Germany in all types of agricultural business: crop cultivation as well as animal husbandry, production and processing of biomass for food and feed as well as for energetic or industrial purposes. OnP (ES): OnP is a consulting enterprise specialized in project managing, monitoring and evaluation. Its staff has a wide experience in ERASMUS+ projects and in the development of VET materials in the farming and rural development sector.FU (SE): FU is an adult educational association that offers a wide range of adult education all over Sweden. FU has a broad open educational program in a variety of subjects; it also runs schools in higher vocational education, labour market education and further education and training for working life. AèV (IT): AèV is a Vocational Training Centre. Its main objectives are: to promote and stimulate the social-cultural and civic development and training, at any level, of all the citizens, and more specifically farmers, in many economic and social sectors (agriculture, food industry, administrative and advanced services).APF_CR (CZ): APF_CR is a voluntary professional organization of private farmers in the Czech Republic. Defending the economic, social and professional intents of the Czech private farmers in the Czech Republic and abroad is the fundamental activity of APF_CR.COAG (ES): COAG is a professional farming organisation which operates in the Jaén province, in Andalusia. It provides a wide range of services from the defense of farmers interests to training, information and technical advising, R+D, dissemination of technical improvements, rural development, etc."

In recent years, climate change has caused a remarkable instability which is affecting the availability and quality of water in many European regions. The lack and difficulty of managing this matter, not only within farming sector is generating tensions between regions and enterprises due to the availability, quality and distribution of water. Considering also the fact that certain products are of notably high water demand and that on certain countries the hydraulic network for agricultural activities is old with many leakages, the gravity of the presented issue is imperative.These evidences and missing short-term and long-term solutions/ perspectives for sustainable solutions build the basis for this project aiming at:raising awareness about the danger of water shortage and the risks of pollutiontraining allowing to optimize the use and quality of water resourcesExchange of examples related more efficient and less polluting farming techniquesWater is a primary resource for agricultural production as well as it is important factor for other sectors and at the same time a public good with public interest behind.Agriculture as the main user of water resources has a significant responsibility in managing of natural resources. And to widen further the topic: agriculture as a sector has influence on water usage; as well on climate change – at least the part of the change which is caused by humans.The project wants to follow a bottom up approach which means learning from practitioners and making their knowledge, patterns and methods in the field of sustainable water management on farming, based on 3 elements:Summary GuideCase studiesTraining modulesThe project’s training methodology is based on the Open Educational Resources (OER) approach, thus developing digital training materials that will be available under a creative commons license allowing their use and distribution free of charges.

"Smallholder agriculture still dominates the European rural economy, with 86% of EU farms holding an area below 20ha (CEMA, November 2017). Advanced agricultural machinery solutions can help farm holdings, regardless of their size, to operate in a profitable, competitive and sustainable manner. In particular, Precision Agriculture (PA) technologies holds great potential for farmers as a new frontier based on use of innovative technologies, such as Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) and aiming at a rational adoption of decisions and planned agricultural works well balanced between competitiveness and sustainability. This concept has been simply explained as a way to ”apply the right treatment in the right place at the right time”. The project aims to develop awareness and competences of farmers, students and other target groups involved in the Agricultural Knowledge Innovation System (AKIS) towards an advanced digital knowledge focused on smart farming oriented to a Vocational and Education Training (VET) framework fostering sustainable development in rural areas, strengthening professional handling of digital data and implements of sprayers for sustainable farming and delivering added value to occupability of youth in rural areas, The project aims also at creating a complete e-learning system based on digital farming linked to use and planning of spraying machinery targeted to farmers, agricultural knowledge advisory services, higher education and agricultural vocational schools, agricultural machinery manufacturers, professonals of the vocational education and training (VET), policy and decision makers and experts of the agricultural sector. The teaching materials, in form of Modules, will be adapted to a web platform system for self-learning with specific attention to i) safety of operators, ii) environmental protection from diffusion of toxic and polluting products, and iii) food safety. Plant protection from adversities due to crittogames, pathogens and harmful insects is absolutely necessary for securing an effective and stable productivity in agriculture. However, because of spraying pesticides, it can produce pollution endangering human health, environment and food safety, Furthermore plant protection machines, called sprayers, are very special if compared to other agricultural machinery, since its quality and application techniques level greatly affect safety and hygiene of food products.The main output of the project will be a training course for combined, on the spot, long distance and online interactive learning, based on a general and detailed knowledge of digital data and tools linked to spraying machinery..The main target users are: a) farmers and sprayers operators; b) students of higher education and agricultural vocational and technical schools; c) agronomists, trainers and persons in charge of the prevention and protection service at work; d) technicians and manufacturers of sprayer machineries.The Intellectual Output (IO) 1 will be the Module 1, entitled ""Digital farming and sprayers"", based on introduction and all available data and tools linked to use and planning on field spraying good practices depending of kinds of crops, land suitability, weather forecast data, treatment calendar and information to be used (EQF Level 3). All kinds of digital data available and suitable to provide farmers with full information will be simply explained making easy to improve competences and decision making skills on advanced technologies available and planning of actions from purchase or leasing to treatments. The IO2 will be the Module 2 entitled ""Proper combination of technologies and digital information for sprayers on selected crops"", based on a selection of crops. At least 4 crops will be choosen as case studies for digitallization of spraying technologies from the national Training Needs Analysis and State-of-the-Art on digital farming for spraying machinery relevant to selected cultivations (EQF Level 4). The machines will be adequately explained, by support of brief descriptions and a wide use of pictures, animations and video-clips, within training modules sequenced according to increasing levels based on the European Qualifications Framework,The IO3 will be the Module 3 entitled ""Digital data for farmers and certification system for sustainable farming"", focused on i) user friendly transfer of digital farming knowledge, competences and skills to farmers (Part I, EQF Level 5) and ii) certification system of digital farming linked to spraying machineries for reduction of environmental pollution, chemical residuals, emissions of Greenhouse gases, etc. implemented with last generation traceability systems (i.e. Distributed Ledger Technology, DLT) attributing a rating based on sustainability indicators (Part II, EQF Level 6). The IO4 will be the ""IMPLEMENT 4.0 Web Training Platform"" collecting all Modules and constituting the online course for Precision Agriculture."

The economic crisis that EU is facing in the last years had negative effects on the employment rate in the member countries. More specifically the unemployment rate in the euro area passed from 6,4% in 2007 to 11,5% in November 2014, with even worse figures in some countries as Spain that passed from an unemployment rate of 8,3% to the 23,9%. The youth unemployment rate has reached at the end of 2014 the 23,7% in the euro area with countries like Spain almost reaching the 55% (Eurostat, 7 January 2015).In 2010, 97% of all the farms in the EU-27 were family farms (farms held by a single natural person who is also the manager) being only the 16% of total agricultural labour performed by non-family workers. At the same time Agriculture in Europe faces a demographic challenge. In 2007 in EU-27, 55, 5% of farmers were over 55 years old. Only 6, 3% were younger than 35 years old, being the ratio of farmers 55 y.o. of only 0.11. This data didn’t improve a lot in the last years considering that the above-mentioned ratio only improved from 0.11 in 2007 to 0.14 in 2010 (EC, Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural development, 12/2013)The European Commission (EC) and its member states constantly highlight family farming for its contribution to the multifunctional aspects of European agriculture in general. The EC is supporting young farmers under the rural development initiatives of the common agricultural policy’s (CAP) so-called second pillar.Family farms thus represent an important resource that may help:- Reducing the unemployment rate in rural areas;- Tackling the demographic challenge of European farming;- Maintaining and improving the social, economic and cultural sustainability of rural areas.To keep alive the economic and social potential of family farms a key factor is to provide young farmers with the tools and knowledge needed to face the succession process.The project focuses on the presentation of and the exchange about successful experiences of skilled and motivated young farmers in continuing the family business of their parents. This exchange about experiences from entrepreneur to entrepreneur will lead to:• development of further innovative concepts and patterns for succession.• facility in decision making during succession in family run farms in Europe.• improvement in the economic and personal situation in this phase and for the future.• improvement for the demographic situation in agriculture and rural areas.• improve demographic situation in agriculture and rural areas.These objectives will be reached by providing young farmers training materials based on case studies and complementary OER that will make them able to face in a sustainable way the succession process in their family farms. Namely the main contents of the training system are:- A summary report about the state of the art of succession processes in family farms in Europe and in the involved countries;- A set of 30 case studies gathering best practices related to succession processes in family farms in the involved countries;- Training modules providing the knowledge needed to face a succession process in a sustainable way;- A “serious game” simulating a succession process in different family farms context.The training materials (in English, German, Spanish, Italian, Slovenian, Czech and French) are fully available free of charges on the project webpage.The FARM_SUCCESS consortium is made of the following partners:TUM (DE): Technical University of Munich, participating with the Chair Economics of Horticulture and Landscaping.HuL (DE): An independent private consultancy focused on consulting of agricultural and rural family enterprises. OnP (ES): A project managing and project evaluation consulting enterprise.COAG (ES) and APF_CR (CZ): Farmers associations. AèV (IT): An Association of Vocational Training promoted by the Agricultural Italian Confederation (CIA) in order to provide VET to the associated farmers (more than 900.000) throughout Italian rural areas.BTC_Naklo (SI): A public educational institution working in these fields: Agriculture, Rural Development, Horticulture, Floristic, Dairying, Nature Preservation, Organic Farming, Stockbreeding and Renewable Energy. They are an important actor within the Slovenian VET system.CEJA (BE): A European umbrella organisation gathering farmers association and representing around 2 million young farmers in Europe.