Project Goals
Our overarching objective is to promote, facilitate and accelerate the global transition to regenerative agriculture and food systems, farming, and land management in order to restore climate stability, increase biodiversity, rebuild soil fertility and produce healthy food. The main purpose of this project is to: (1) determine the level of vermicomposting contribution to productivity in agriculture and farming in rural areas, (2) demonstrate multiple benefits of term technology; low-cost production of biofertilizer, environmental management of solid wastes, and agricultural residues, enhanced soil productivity, tastier quality food (3) develop chemical-free vermicomposting production techniques for farmers professionally and for families whose solid kitchen waste can be used as home compost. (4) Raise аgro ecology awareness among citizens (families and kids).
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Target Group
The target group for this project:
- Apprentices (from VET Schools and HEI) and other interested individuals with an agricultural background (end users).
Partners
- FONDACIJA AGRO CENTAR ZA EDUKACIJA FACE - The Republic of North Macedonia
- APRICOT RESEARCH INSTITUTE - Turkey
- NATURAINNOVA GIDA TARIM VE ILAC LTD - Turkey
- INNOPOLIS Centre for Innovation and Culture – Greece
- INTERNATIONAL LABOUR ASSOCIATION– The Netherlands
- WWOOF ESPANA – Spain
- INNOTOMIA P.C. - Greece
Short Description
Тhe PowerWORMS consortium has been devoted to addressing in the most efficient way and to a certain level of degree the improvement of the response of EU agriculture to societal demands on food and health, including safe, nutritious and sustainable food, food waste, foster sustainable development and efficient management of natural resources such as water, soil and air promoting formal and informal educational and training on vermicomposting to farmers, students, families, teachers, and professionals. The value and importance of earthworms in agriculture was first recognized in writing by the father of ecology Charles Darwin, who in 1881, declared “Worms are powerful than the African Elephant and are more important to the economy than the cow”.
PowerWORMS Project aims to study, research, and verify the production techniques and specifications of vermicomposting in order to transfer the knowledge to interested parties; farmers and consumers so that the utmost importance of using vermicomposting could be disseminated. The project also aims to establish a network link and a discussion platform among researchers, academicians, public organization representatives, marketing experts, consumers, and local producers to share different perspectives, expert opinions and in order to discover new opportunities and ways to improve the existing production processes and facilitate the product innovation. The project will close the skills gap in agriculture education by providing web-based training on bio-composting and vermicomposting of the farm, urban and agro-industrial waste in Agriculture, the PowerWORMS Educational ToolBox.
- The courses will enable learners to apply alternative cultivation methods, thereby equipping them with the competencies to respond to the challenges the agricultural sector is experiencing.
- Inform VET authorities and policymakers about bio-composting and vermicomposting of the farm, urban and agro industrial waste thereby giving impetus to include teaching contents on the subject into national framework curricula.
- Integrate the Educational ToolBox courses into curricula of agricultural VET providers/schools, training centers, and HEIs
- Develop and promote a practical open Digital Application Intelligent Software tool for supporting the organization and control of bioclimatic operational parameters related to the vermicomposting process in the farm.
- Conduct an awareness-raising campaign (Multiplier events) on national and European level giving policymakers, VET providers, farmers, and the general public a coherent picture of the state of the art of bio-composting and vermicomposting of the farm, urban and agro-industrial waste and help improve the perception about alternative farming, its benefits and the possibilities to upscale measures.