PermaVET aims to increase awareness about climate change among VET trainees in various sustainability-relevant sectors and develop vocation-specific competences to reduce energy use, save resources, and process sustainable organic food. The idea is to use the permaculture concept to sensitise vocational groups for their specific potential in making a change. The permaculture concept has become increasingly popular in agriculture in recent years. However, it holds the additional potential for optimising the consumption of resources and energy that are meaningful for other vocational fields in environmentally relevant sectors.
In this project, this innovative cultivation method will be tested in two exemplary vocational fields, cooking and electronics/mechatronics. VET trainees work on permaculture projects to develop green skills strengthening their profiles for a growing environment-friendly market in two sustainability-relevant sectors. This gives them in-depth insight into current climatic change processes and climate adaptation options as part of their training occupations. Trainees in cooking learn how to use and handle sustainable, ecological agriculture for a constantly growing business field. The curriculum gives them an additional qualification to later work in catering establishments with environmental and health concepts. The curriculum provides trainees in electronics/mechatronics with an insight into increasingly technological agricultural processes, and they develop approaches to improve sustainability and optimise ecological production methods by using smart technologies. The focus lies in recognising production steps in which energy is released unused and developing technical solutions for other production steps.
The first training module (IO1) introduces climate change topics and the effects on agriculture and climate adaptation through permaculture. For pilot testing, these topics are worked on with VET trainees in cooking and electronics/mechatronics to raise their awareness for the EU Sustainable Development Goals and create the basis for completing the profession-specific modules.
In the second training module (IO2), which is developed for cook training, the trainees learn to recognize the quality and taste differences between ecologically produced and conventionally produced products. They will also learn how to use these products, wash them properly, adjust the amount of ingredients based on their more intense taste, and make food ecologically and sustainably. Also, trainees learn important skills to work in high-class restaurants with a high proportion of organic food. An additional output that the trainees work on is an exclusive international recipe collection containing regional, seasonal and ecological products from the partner countries.
The third training module (IO3) The training module enables the trainees to get to know the production processes of permaculture, take into account material consumption and energy consumption, and, in a further step, to identify the production steps in which resources remain unused. The trainees learn how to use these new resources to generate energy for other production steps. By completing the module, the trainees learn about organic farming and deal with the important topics of resource use in production processes and acquire important skills for a later professional career.
The modules are suitable for purposefully expanding existing VET curricula and are developed to be easily adapted for other professions’ training courses. In this way, it is possible to integrate a central topic of the EU’s Sustainable Development Goals, ecological and sustainable agriculture, into existing VET curricula and combine these topics to acquire important key competences for different professions. The agricultural cultivation method of permaculture gives trainees and trainers insight into an agricultural business model that enables the successful establishment of small agricultural businesses and favours entrepreneurship, especially in economically weaker countries of the EU.
Partnership: ZAUG gGmbH (DE), C.I.P. CITIZENS IN POWER (CY), CEPROF (PT), The Polish Farm Advisory and Training Centre not-forprofit Sp. z o. o.(PL)
Facebook page: www.facebook.com/PermaVET
Website: www.permaveterasmusproject.eu
Duration: December 31st, 2020 – December 30th, 2022 (24 months)
Project Number: 2020-1-DE02-KA202-007629
The European Commission support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents which reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.