Vocational education & training for transhumance practitioners

Transhumance is a seasonal movement of livestock accompanied by people. It is a prevalent but rarely noticed form of land use across Europe. Transhumance is a sustainable way of land management an...

TRANSFARM aimed at developing training material that provides especially young famers and rural entrepreneurs who want to start with and/or maintain transhumance with skills and knowledge to better address the changing challenges and new demands of their job such as knowledge about business development and communication skills. To make access to training easier, training materials are available under a creative commons license allowing their use and distribution free of charge. With our project we aimed to reach the following objects: The first objective of the project was to provide an overview about the current situation of transhumance in the partners’ countries. Information about transhumance is scattered, not readily available and not prepared for comparison. The second objective of the project was to collect case studies of best practice that convey the experiences of successful transhumance practitioners. The third objective was to develop digital training material for transhumance practitioners consisting of e-learning modules, general information about transhumance in different countries, a database of case studies of best practice assembled in an easily accessible way for self-learning.

The project activities were organized as 6 work packages. The first three work packages were implementation work packages: WP 1: Analysis of the current situation of transhumance. WP 2: Collection of case studies. WP3: Development and testing of training materials. In addition to these implementation work packages, the project contained three transversal work packages. WP 4: Management. WP 5: Monitoring and Evaluation. WP6: Dissemination and Exploitation. Activities implemented in WP1 were: A1. Selection of members of target groups; A2. Workshop amongst partners during the kick-off meeting to make a first analysis of the current situation of transhumance; A3. Design of the research instrument to perform the state-of-the-art analysis; A4. Deeper analysis of the state of the art involving experts and stakeholders not belonging to the project’s partners; A5. Edition of National Reports; A6. Edition of a Summary Report; A7. Production of glossary; A8. Production of e-reference book; A9. Translation of the Summary Report into national languages. Activities implemented in WP2 were: A1. Starting from the results of the previous WP the partners defined the minimum criteria and parameters of best practices for the case studies; A2. A first questionnaire covering the minimum criteria and the professional competences of the promoters of the experiences was distributed by the partners in order to gather a first group of case studies; A3. The filled questionnaires were analysed by the partners and case studies were selected; A4. A second questionnaire was designed in order to deeply analyse the selected case studies and to gather all the needed data to edit them. To gather these data the partners interviewed the promoters of the selected experiences; A5. The structure of the case studies was defined by the partners; A6. Translation of case study entries into national language. Activities implemented in WP3 were: A1. Gathering and designing a set of training modules; A2. Designing self-evaluation tools to assess the training results; A3. Preparing information for the inclusion in the training material; A4. Preparing a database of case studies of best practice for the inclusion in the training material; A5. Adapting the tools developed to be used in an e-learning open-source training platform; A6. Testing a beta version; A7. Developing and uploading the final version; A8. Translation of the whole material to national languages and uploading the final versions. In addition to the activities implemented in the work packages, the project comprised 6 transnational project meetings and 7 multiplier events.

The first main outcome of the project is an overview about the situation of transhumance in a selection of European countries including information about the current areas of transhumance, its history, livestock used, kind of transhumance, its purposes and products, its values and meanings, the legal situation and funding, VET offers and training gaps, available knowledge about transhumance, awareness about transhumance and challenges. This information is presented in form of an e-reference book providing the following specific results a) 9 National Reports about the current situation of transhumance (Germany, Greece, Italy, France, Spain, Norway, Slovakia, Hungary, the Low Countries), b) 1 Summary Report, c) e-glossary containing definitions of topic-related key terms to enhance communication among differences languages and cultures. The second main outcome of the project is a data base with cases studies of best practice of successful transhumance practitioners. Specific results are presented through 21studies from 9 European countries (France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Norway, Slovakia, Spain, Austria). The third main outcome is the production of digital training material for transhumance practitioners that is available online and free of charge for self-learning. The training material consists of the following: a) learning modules, b) Summary Report c) database of case studies of best practice, d) 4 fact sheets. In addition, the project produced the following minor outcomes: Production of material for proper management and communication among project partners. The following material was produced: 1) management guidelines, 2) reporting procedures and administrative guidelines and 3) meeting minutes from 6 transnational meetings. Production of material to monitor and evaluate the project. The following material was produced 1) meeting evaluation questionnaires, project results evaluation questionnaire, project progress questionnaires, pilot testing questionnaires and multiplier events evaluation questionnaires, 2) evaluation report (including midterm and final evaluation report, project results reports) and a Project Risks Analysis (PRA). Production of dissemination material to exploit the project results. The following material was produced 1) project graphic design, 2) project website, 3) newsletter in digital format, 4) informative brochure.