The IMPLEMENT project aims at disseminating good and innovative practices for European farmers on the use of pesticides and other plant protection chemicals, also in comparison with similar standards used in Turkey, with a specific attention to i) safety of operators, ii) environmental protection from diffusion of toxic and polluting products, and iii) food safety. Plant protection is an absolutely necessary measurement for securing the high and stable productivity in the present agriculture. However, because of applying pesticide, it has produced the pollution of environment, which endangers the life of human being, so that it has been paid more attention greatly. Also, plant protection machinery is very different with the other agricultural machinery, its quality and application techniques level affect safety of products. The project is coordinated by the Ondokuz Mayis University and partners are: Agricoltura è Vita Associazione and ENAMA from Italy, ASAJA Granada from Spain and Ankara University and University of Cukurova from Turkey. Other foreseen external collaborations will be: COPA-COGECA, representing the European farmers' associations and cooperatives, ENTAM, representing the EU agricultural machinery certification bodies and CEMA, representing the European Agricultural Machinery Manufacturers. Other European associations and networks will be involved during the ongoing activities (CEJA, OSHA-Europe, CEDEFOP), as well as representatives of European institutions.The main output of the project will be a catalogue for combined training, open on the spot, long distance and online interactive learning, based on a typologic selection, without reference to trade marks, of the sprayer machineries with their positive and negative issues with relation to the triad of personal, environmental and food safety. The machines will be adequately explained, by support of brief descriptions and a wide use of pictures and video-clips, within training modules sequenced according to increasing levels based on the European Qualifications Framework, starting from a basic admission test (Level 1) corresponding to the qualification of farmer and generic agricultural employee and/or first instalment young farmer to grow up step-by-step to the superior levels (Level 2, for the basic use and maintenance of the machine; Level 3 for planning spraying and related preparation, cleaning and maintenance ; Level 4, with a specialistic module for functional controls addressed to expert sprayer users and personnel responsible for this kind of controls; Level 5, with a specialistic module for sprayer machinery manufacturers including advises for improvement of some technical characteristics, fit for increasing safety standards and providing a user friendly manual for use, controls and correct maintenance).The main target users are: a) farmers and sprayers operators; b) agronomists, trainers and persons in charge of the prevention and protection service at work; c) technicians in charge for functional controls of sprayer machineries ; d) manufacturers of sprayer machineries with specific reference to providing user friendly use and maintenance manuals. The project is sheduled to be developed through 8 Work Packages:I) Staff building, task responsibility sharing and coordination (OMU);II) Training needs analysis and comparison between the participating countries, with specific reference to European rules and standards and to Turkey as a case study (AèV);III) Adaptation of existing training materials with innovative methodology based on slides and animations with brief description and commented movies (ENAMA);IV) Evaluation of the teaching materials, risk analysis and internal assessment (Ankara University);V) Transfer of the teaching materials in an interactive e-learning training platform (OMU) and translation of the teaching materials from English into the national languages (all partners); VI) Test of prototype training materials with target groups (ASAJA Granada);VII) Presentation of the training materials and piloting tests with farmers and manufacturers representatives (with involvement of CEMA, ENTAM and COPA-COGECA in Brussels), and participation of the involved European institutions (European Commission DG AGRI, Employment, Health and Safety; members of the European Parliament and of other institutions, such as Economic Social Committee and Committee of Regions), press and other media journalists specialized for agricultural and work safety. VIII) International Final Conference with presentation of the final results and products and availability online of the training materials (OMU in collaboration with Cukurova and Ankara Universities).

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.

<< Objectives >>Precision Agriculture (PA), a farming management concept based upon observing, measuring and responding to variability of conditions in crops, or to manage some aspects of animal rearing, is a new frontier based on use of innovative communication system technologies. The EASY4DIGIT project will offer advanced training solutions to the main categories concerned, farmers, students of vocational agricultural school and universities, advisory services, professionals, manufacturers and policy makers.<< Implementation >>An e-Learning course will be set up on use of digital technologies in agriculture for • optimizing the agronomic decisions • controlling the precision of the applications • recording the work performed • analysing the performances. Within this learning framework the Decision Support Systems will be particularly explained as drivers for Precision Agriculture connecting farming with digital education and technological competences for more sustainable, resilient and competitive rural areas.<< Results >>The project will be developed through 5 WPs: WP1 Management WP2 State-of-Art WP3 Training Course on Use of digital Technologies in Agriculture WP4 Web platform for e-Learning and WP5 Evaluation, Monitoring and Dissemination.The course will be made of 3 Modules: Module 1 Education and Training on Digital Technologies for Farm Decision Support; Module 2 Smart Solutions for Innovative, Sustainable and Safe Agri-food Supply Chains; Module 3 Digital Innovation and Good Practices for Rural Areas.

"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."

"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."