Project details

Learning on Entrepreneurship and Agriculture for New farmers – LEAN

While European agriculture is facing an ageing population with transmission issues, a new generation of farmers is rising: young people with no agricultural certification and without a farming background. These new farmers are seeking to develop a more sustainable agriculture while properly earning their lives. More than traditional farmers, they are entrepreneurs and not only need technical agricultural knowledge but also organisational, economic, and entrepreneurial skills.

In addition to having to deal with the difficulties of building up their farm (e.g. land access issues), new farmers must learn their new job quickly and efficiently. Support or training structures guiding young farmers through the process of installation like agricultural incubators are created, especially in France, but they are sorely lacking training tools. Other training structures do not meet their needs, as they are full-time training programmes lasting several years. Moreover, new farmers are mostly interested in agroecological and organic practices which are not specifically provided in those courses.

The aim of the project is to provide high quality learning opportunities on agroecogical and organic agriculture, entrepreneurial skills, and concrete examples of good practices and tips from European farmers. Targeting young and new farmers, the training programme will be designed according to a capacity building approach based on relevant, customized, innovative and easily accessible tools that can be mobilized by organisations of agricultural training.

To achieve those objectives, the LEAN project will provide 2 main Intellectual Outputs:

O1 : Training programme on agroecological and organic agronomic knoledge and entrepreneurial skills for new and young farmers

O2 : In depth case studies on accomplished farmers

Main results produced within (1) are a training needs assessment, Open Educational Resource modules on agroecological and organic farming and guidelines for learners and facilitators. The training system approach is based on the educational method ‘flipped classroom training’ during which learners use the training resources on their own before engaging discussion with the facilitator. This independent training system will allow every learner to advance at their own pace and to acquire knowledge according to their own specific experience. The case studies (2) will analyse the practices implemented by the farmers and propose feedbacks and tips for the learners. Three case studies per country represented in the consortium will be carried out.

Through the combination of online training material, case studies, best practices examples, and face-to-face exchanges, the learning programme will offer a complete and enriching training for new farmers. The training modules are freely accessible on an online platform where interactions between learners, facilitators and other stakeholders will be encouraged.

The project consortium is composed of six European organisations form five EU countries. The partnership is established between vocational education organisations, research and consulting organisations, and NGO, all of them working in the field of agriculture.

Project website