ANRD is delighted to announce its participation in a new project: Sowing AgroEcological Education in the VET sector (SEEDS).
The SEEDS project, co-funded by the European Union under ERASMUS-EDU-2024-CB-VET (Project No: 101183285), will assist VET institutions adapt to sustainable agriculture by promoting green skills, biodiversity, and food sovereignty. It addresses biodiversity loss from industrial farming, rural depopulation, and declining traditional cultivation. Many agricultural models lack hands-on, locally adapted approaches, limiting learners’ engagement with agroecology. Meanwhile, seed industry monopolization threatens small-scale farmers and food sovereignty.
SEEDS also tackles rural challenges, particularly in the Western Balkans, where youth migration and land abandonment erode traditional knowledge. By fostering intergenerational learning and community-based agroecology, it keeps sustainable practices central to VET education and jobs.
SEEDS unites partners from Italy, Greece, France, Albania, Kosovo, and Bosnia & Herzegovina to develop agroecology curricula, green skills training, and stakeholder engagement:
- CESIE (Italy)
- EUROTRAINING (Greece)
- SMOC (Bosnia & Herzegovina)
- Universum College (Kosovo)
- ANRD (Albania)
- LIVNO (Bosnia & Herzegovina)
- SYNCNIFY (France)
Main goals
- Strengthen vocational education and training (VET) in sustainable agriculture by integrating agroecological principles into curricula, equipping learners with green skills and promoting food sovereignty.
- Develop participatory and practice-oriented curricula to better align VET education with labor market needs, ensuring that graduates are prepared for careers in the green economy.
- Create an inclusive, multi-stakeholder approach to agroecological education and rural sustainability.
- Contribute to EU priorities on environmental sustainability and the circular economy, with a particular focus on the Western Balkans.
In this project the Albanian Network for Rural Development contributes its grassroots expertise in rural development, co-leading the context analysis and integrating the LEADER approach into participatory curriculum development.