Abstract
Today, farmers are multioptional entrepreneurs, demanding far more skills than only those of agricultural production. The awareness of European agricultural landscape (EAL) values should enable farmers to create new business strategies. Open education repositories (OERs) based on online vocational education and training (VET) are still not widespread. The project FEAL (multifunctional farming for the sustainability of EALs) has brought interactive material online based on results of two questionnaire surveys performed in Germany, Italy, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Spain. A survey of 31 experts confirmed that VET activities are very much needed for farmers. A survey of 28 farmers had different aims and content. Data collected from farmers were used to evaluate basic farm attributes, farmers’ characteristics, and keywords indicating the farms’ activities, multifunctionality and sustainability, and EALs, specifying the presence of nature- and landscape-protected areas. A decision-making schema, applying a collection of terms from literature analysis and the questionnaire’s results, is a support tool to develop a model of a farm that contributes to the preservation of the landscape’s character, strengthening the landscape’s quality, and sustainable business. The model presents the interactions of the farm (its territory and ancestral heritage, control of natural resources, tourism services and cultural events, public goods provision, and quality guarantees); socioeconomic strategies regarding quality, marketing, communication, business operation, and monitoring are proposed.
Highlights
Some European agricultural landscapes (EALs) can be found all over Europe; others are limited to a few regions
The content of the questionnaire was developed by the FEAL consortium
Qualitative data on farms were expressed in keywords defining EAL, farming activities, and multifunctionality and sustainability of the farms
Summary
The European Landscape Convention (2000) [1] defines the term cultural landscape very broadly to include so-called everyday landscapes, to which agricultural landscapes, as well as urban or degraded areas, predominantly belong. Many centuries of agricultural land use have left a rich cultural tangible and intangible heritage manifested in land management, folklore traditions, rural infrastructure, and, last but not least, the landscape itself. The diversity of different landscapes in Europe would be inconceivable without agriculture, which is the defining factor in large parts of European landscapes. Some European agricultural landscapes (EALs) can be found all over Europe; others are limited to a few regions. The Institute for Research on European Agricultural Landscapes e.V. (EUCALAND) is an international network of experts who have taken on the task of investigating the cultural aspects of agricultural landscapes
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