Finantatori

GOALS OF PROJECT

The project named "Promoting the Ecological Agriculture in Romania" is designed to support the effort of conversion of Romanian agriculture from a classical, intensive one to ecological agriculture. That means a long-term change not only in production techniques, but also in mentality of producers, preparing them for European competition. As result, that will increase the sustainability of agriculture, protection of environment and health of population that consume agriculture products.

The pursued general objectives of the project are:

- to aware the groups of agricultural producers - as the main target group, and experts from National Agency for Agricultural Extension in Romania, local mayors, opinion leaders, educational staff, students, NGOs working for environmental protection, development; trade unions - as secondary target group, about the consequences of Romanian negotiation for EU integration and showing them as an alternative the advantages of conversing the agriculture to an ecological one;

- to strength the ability of local agricultural producers in the areas of project to promote sustainable development agriculture;

- to promote cooperation, dialogue, and joint efforts between sectors of the local population, Romanian NGOs, Romanian government and local authorities and all interested institutions and/or persons, for forward local economic and environmental challenges and promoting long-term sustainable agriculture development;

- to promote sustainable solutions and a positive model of agriculture production for economic and social development of the branch in Romania respecting the European and international standards for protection of the environment.

For fulfilling those objectives, AGROECOLOGIA proposes to accomplish, together with its partners, the following particular objectives:

01. Informing: Informing the groups of agricultural producers - as the main target group, and experts from National Agency for Agricultural Extension in Romania, local mayors, opinion leaders, educational staff, students, NGOs working for environmental protection, development; trade unions - as secondary target group. This task will have four directions:
01.1. Set up a Resource Centre for Ecological Agriculture: The centre will bring together in a data base (that will be easily accessed on a web site) the paper works and researches realised in diverse institutions from Romania or Europe and which includes techniques, methods, ways controlling predators and deseeds; specific for ecological agriculture. It will work, in the same time, as a network for the researchers, scholars and producers for joining their effort. In that way many works and research results would be faster at the disposal of anyone who is interested in ecological agriculture. Creation of a data base including a large number of ecological researches is one of the desiderates which, once is finished and is working properly, will have an great impact in obtaining immediate results in the process of agriculture conversion.
01.2 Set up Electronic Journal for Ecological Agriculture,with weekly appearance.: That will be designated for the decisional factors from the agricultural structures (administration - Ministry of Agriculture, researchers - universities, research centres, opinion leaders, agricultural high schools, groups of agricultural producers, general and specialised mass-media) from Romanian.
O1.3. Set up an Electronic Support for extension and training actions: That will include 10 culture technologies prepared in MS PowerPoint (field culture, trees culture, viticulture, vegetables culture, flowers culture, medical and spice plants culture, beekeeping, fishery, animal husbandry, poultry). Those will be designed to be uniform, attractive and interactive for all producers, and at their level of understanding.
O1.4. Set up Guidebooks for the 10 culture technologies: with a number of 100 copies for each technology, summing 1000 copies for all technologies. AGROECOLOGIA already starts the work for preparing the guidebooks for ecological producers with the support of National Federation for Ecological Agriculture (FNAE) and EUROAGRIPROIECT.
02. Training: Training the groups of agricultural producers - as the main target group, and a number of young graduated specialists in ecological agriculture. This task will have two directions:
O2.1. Training Lectors for Ecological Agriculture
: one for each sector (totally 10 lectors) during a six days theoretical training at USAMV Cluj-Napoca (P01) and other six days practical training in farms of AGROECOLOGIA's members. Potential lectors will be identified from young graduated of USAMV Cluj-Napoca (P01).
O2.2. Training sessions: organised in area of project with the support of partners and will transfer information, technologies and advices for ecological agriculture cultivation to the agricultural producers and to agricultural extension experts on the 10 themes of the project (field culture, trees culture, viticulture, vegetables culture, flowers culture, medical and spice plants culture, beekeeping, fishery, animal husbandry, poultry). It will be organised 12 training session, including 3 courses, expecting an average number of 30 agricultural producers for each of them. In that way will be trained around 1000 agricultural producers.
O3. Dissemination of Results and Evaluation of Impact: Dissemination of Results and Evaluation of Impact of the project will be an important objective that will be taken into consideration all the time during the development of project. This task will have two directions:
O3.1. Dissemination of Results: will be realised throughout web site, seminaries, workshops, training sessions, mass media, other sources of informing (such as video presentation of activities done). For the indirect actions (TV and radio shows, publications) the target will be, mainly, the consumers, who will learn the importance of ecological products for their lives, and in that way will produce effects to other producers not direct included into project.
O3.2. Evaluation of Impact: of the project will be done using a number of results evaluation indices: number of agricultural producers that will begin the process of conversion to ecological agriculture, and, respectively, the area converted area (the necessary period of conversion is 3 years, and they must notify the Ministry of Agriculture their intention, according to law 38/2001); and number of agricultural producers that will join the FNAE.