ECOVINEGOALS promotes sustainability and resilience in the winemaking industry by encouraging the transition of intensive viticulture towards agroecological management systems that protect natural habitats and landscapes, reduce chemical and fossil fuel inputs and minimize harmful emissions. The project also aims to enhance stakeholder skills in participatory local governance, to strengthen transnational cooperation and provide specific transnational instruments to promote, support and manage the agroecological transition. Together, the project actions will address environmental vulnerability, promote the provision of ecosystem services, act to prevent social conflicts in land use and mitigate climate change.

Currently the project consortium is working with local viticulture stakeholders in each of the eight project pilot areas (1 in Croatia, 2 in Greece, 2 in Italy, 1 in Montenegro, 1 in Serbia, and 1 in Slovenia) to implement a participatory process that will result in the formulatio  of multi-actor action plans specific to each area to encourage the widest possible participation and support in agroecological initiatives in viticulture and the sustainable development of each rural area. A series of three workshops is being held in each pilot area in which viticulturalists, agricultural advisors, representatives of local agricultural research institutes and organic agriculture certification bodies, local development agencies, local authorities, the ministry of agriculture and associated commercial and tourism bodies, work together to identify key problems, envision an idealised scenario for the future devlopment of agroecology-based viticulture in the area and how this cultivation could benefit related sectors with initiatives in Wine- and Gastrotourism, the creation of additional employment opportunities and greater access to safe natural areas for local inhabitants. The final stage of the procedure entails the production of local action plans that defines, plans and costs the key actions to be implemented in each area to activate the transition process.

In the context of AgroSilver Value project the Department of Sustainable Agriculture, CIHEAM_MAICh has produced a video describing the agroecolgical viticulture practices employed by the ECOVINEGOALS stakeholder NOSTOS (Manousakis family) winery at Vatolakkos, Chania, Greece.

Project objective is to improve the training attractiveness of the agroecology VET, providing teachers with tools with capacity to attract farmers to higher levels of education, and also recover silver knowledge which can be otherwise lost.

One of the main tools of the project is the video processing software allowing the users to process training videos, creating new learning contents, reviewing existing contents, and using the resulting videos for teaching.

Another tool, the data platform is integrated by hundreds of videos recording practices of silver farmers and teachers about agroecology. Hours of videos, with explanations of work-based practices, provided by experienced actors, which have both high quality information and very attractive format. The videos will include talking of the farmer/teacher, mixed with on-field explanations of specific practices or methods.

The big difference of this data base, and other huge unmanageable databases, is the processing software. The software transfer all the talking information of the videos into text, which will be stored and indexed to every video. The information, both video and text, will be stored in a video mine which will be exploited through the SilverKnows software.

Teachers will ask SilverKnows about specific training contents, and SilverKnows will provide reports with text content and related video contents, which can be integrated in the training. Moreover, specific searches can be done to verify data in existing training content, or to create feedback on existing teaching practices (to be explained later).

Video learning has been placed as the primary form of learning in most organizations. The coronavirus pandemic has accelerated the process, making it essential that learning be accessed anywhere at any time on any device.

“EU-backed researchers studied different ecological management practices on Scottish livestock farms. They found that adopting ecological practices could help increase farm profits by up to 7 %”. You can read the article here:

https://cordis.europa.eu/article/id/435653-farming-practices-good-for-the-environment-and-the-farmer-s-pocket

Interesting article by European Commission (CORDIS) about a new research that demonstrates “how sustainable farming not only benefits the environment but also empowers farmers and rural communities”. You can read it here:

https://cordis.europa.eu/article/id/434324-many-agroecological-futures-are-possible-in-europe

Here you can read an interesting press article about Agroecology published by The Ecologist.org. The article reflects on the need to change the intensive and industrialised production model towards a more environmentally sustainable agriculture. Its author, Astrud Lea Beringer, calls for the involvement of society to achieve it.

https://theecologist.org/2022/jan/13/agroecology-can-be-our-new-food-system

Taking climate change into account and preserving the environment have led farmers to develop inventive methods to meet the challenges that concern the whole world: soil preservation, biodiversity, landscapes, energy management, water quality and its good management, air quality… The changes are permanent and positive. Meeting these challenges also means ensuring that changes in practices are economically viable for farms and correspond to consumer demand.

European Governments have given impetus to these dynamics through financial mechanisms that make it possible to test and support farmers in changing their practices. The evolution of the CAP and in particular the measures concerning greening, also impose these changes.

The coordinator of the project, Lot et Garonne Chamber of Agriculture, and the rest of institutions provide technical and economic support to farmers in all productions because this department is rich in diversity. Our establishments cover the various fields of field crops, small fruits and fruit productions, animal productions but also agroforestry, organic farming, intermediate crops, renewable energies, biodiversity, water management …

The AgroSilver Value project is an innovative project that will allow us to share the experiences of farmers at all levels, regional, national and European. This project also makes it possible to measure the commitments of our neighboring countries, project partners and to share them.

For the Chamber of Agriculture, which is a training center for farmers and farm employees, these will be educational tools that will facilitate the training. This project will be made available to various training courses for young people, farmers themselves, other Chambers of Agriculture, as well as administrations and political decision-makers.

Agrosilver project “Integrating silver knowledge from agroecology into the VET systems” has already launched the recording of video material that will support teachers in the improvement of the digital contents of their lessons.

Agrosilver expects the recording of more than 1.000 minutes of video education materials which will cover different aspects of the agroecology. These videos will be freely available to be used by teachers, students and training centres in their lessons. Videos will come from different EU countries, all of them counting on subtitles in several languages to increase the transferability and usability of the training materials.

Agrosilver project has been funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union, and involve the cooperation of partners from Greece, Spain, Bulgaria, France and Malta during the years 2020 to 2023.

For more information in www.agrosilver.eu

Agrosilver project “Integrating silver knowledge from agroecology into the VET systems” has been launched in September 2020 and the partners has been gathered in the first technical workshop.

This project, AgroSilver Value, provides a new approach for the development of knowledge in the agriculture sector.  The project tools can support teachers and students in their daily work with agroecology,  by providing new attractive content, 100% video content and work-based. With the provided tools, the agricultural teaching will be more attractive, both for the teacher and the student.

Platform of Agreoecology Videos

This Platform is a compilation of videos related to agroecology, based on the real experiences and testimonies of farmers, silver farmers and teachers, gathered in a structured online database, where the videos are stored and indexed with labels for a better identification.

The search portal allows to filter by labels, by keywords, or just use the automatic searching machine, resulting in a list of proposed videos on the selected thematic.

Videos Software

The software, integrated in the platform, will allow you to:

1. Read the audio content of the video.
2. Transform the audio into text, creating subtitles and storing the data.
3. Translate the subtitles into main EU language.
4. Create automatic labelling of the video, identifying main topics and video thematic.

The project tools are delivery freely for any interested teacher or student, because they are developed under the European project of cooperation “Agrosilver Value” which has been funded by the European Commission through the Eramus+ programme.

For more information in www.agrosilver.eu