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A note from the Chairman of the UEAA Agricultural education commission

24 07 2017

The UEAA new commission: “agricultural education”.A step report from the Chairman , JP BASTIE. In Paris, on July 19 2017


Outline
Position of this new commission
Questionnaire to be filled up and sent back to JP Bastié
Recent advances

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At the general meeting of October 11, 2016 in Paris, it was officially recorded the establishment of a commission “agricultural education”.

This commission focuses on technical agricultural education, and the medium term objective would be to produce a report on the various challenges that currently meet the farmers and particularly the young ones across Europe in running their own business and how could adequate technical agricultural education assist them to better understand the changes in agriculture of today and tomorrow and help them to cope with those in the most efficient manner. We believe that farmers should make a decent living out of their production and to reach this goal, training and education are a critical key process.

Inspector General of the agriculture (Honorary), I am a local councilor in Bagnères de Luchon, who made the most of my career in agricultural education with responsibilities at the local level (school head of 3 agricultural schools), regional (responsible regional agricultural education in Aquitaine) and national (Deputy Director of the action of the educational community).

I proposed to the new president of the UEAA Professor Michel Thibier , who is a friend and a colleague from the Academy of Agriculture of France with whom I had the honor to work when I was Deputy Director and himself general manager in charge of agricultural education and French research, solicit the network of UEAA to mobilize agricultural schools to become even more than today major players accompanying a changing agriculture.

We work as an electronic working group with members of the UEAA across Europe. The principle of this group is based on exchange: the exchange of information, exchange of good practice and will be hosted at my level to be as light as your workload.

The first item we could think of would be to report on the state of the art in 2017:

  • What level of education is required for a person to start to run a farm?
  • In what kind of schools does this person get trained?

To achieve this we have set a questionnaire that we would send to you to fill.

Secondly, collect more precisely the practices and proposals for action on the following topics:
  • How can the school become a major development actor with a strong insertion in its territory and relations increased with local partners (local authorities, farming profession, parents …)?
  • How farms and technology workshops can they increase their role in technology transfer and innovation?
  • What training to support agriculture mutation: initial and continuing training (linked to higher education)?
  • What farmer profile of tomorrow to face the challenges and changes?
  • How openness to the world through international cooperation can promotes local dynamics?
  • How improve the link between sellers and incoming?

 

In the longer term, these exchanges in the present Zlectronic Working Groiup (EWG) should promote the networking of these settlements at EU level, and enable exchanges of good practices and the establishment of a genuine European cooperation in the form of a data base.

To strengthen the implementation of this EWG, I would like to gather your progress, knowing that a review will be made at the future general assembly in Florence in 2018
For better efficiency of our work, it will be essential to have in each country a referent (you or someone you recommend us), knowing that I myself, am engaged to lead this commission at the UEAA level.

Here is the list of members already contacted:

davidg@innovationforagriculture.org.uk;
giampiero.maracchi@georgofili.it;
munch@tum.de;
podrazsky@fld.czu.cz ;
baiba.rivza@llu.lv ;
dabkevicius@lzi.lt ;
kerstinniblaeus@hotmail.com ;  (Suède)
sing@asas.ro ;
prezid@ukr.net
michel.thibier@outlook.fr ;
tomasgarciaazcarate@gmail.com; (Esp)
guram_aleksidze@yahoo.com (Géorgie)
Stefan.Mihina@uniag.sk
alar.astover@emu.ee
Balazs.ervin@agrar.mta.hu

Recent advances :

1) Svetlana ARMAND :

Responsable développement International de La société UAB BOLLUQ, Subačiaus g. 15-53, LT-01126 Vilnius, Lituanie

+370 655 10 833 (eurasian.concept@gmail.com)

Will ensure the development in Lithuania, Latvia, Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, following the directives of Jean-Pierre Bastié.

2) In France, at the Direction Générale de l’Enseignement et de la Recherche (DGER), following a meeting at the Ministry of Agriculture, the International Service for Agricultural Education proposes to mobilize the network of agricultural colleges already involved in European cooperation in order to relay and amplify this dynamic.

It is important now that all people connected with this action come into contact with me: Jean-Pierre Bastié: jp.bastie@mairie-luchon.fr (tel: 07 84101681)