Europe
December 12, 2013
The New Advisers project held its closing meeting in Budapest in September and leaves behind useful findings and a wealth of learning materials for farm advisers. ENDURE is making sure that the outputs of this interesting two-year project are made widely available.
ENDURE has put online or provided access to New Advisers learning materials including video tutorials available in English, French, German, Hungarian, Portuguese, Slovenian, Spanish and Swedish. They are designed as a visual support to be used in group training sessions with advisers. They can be used to introduce advisers to methods that can help farmers tackle problems with a more holistic and longer-term mindset. By stopping the videos at key moments, they can also be used to stimulate discussion relating the situation in the video to real-life situations and challenges viewers may face in their advisory work.
New Advisers' surveys and testing of advisory methods with advisers in France, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Germany, Hungary and Slovenia show that their is a significant demand among farm advisers for training in the non-technical aspects of working with farmers on 'not urgent but important' long-term sustainability issues.
The survey conducted in eight countries and involving 59 participating advisers showed that 90% of respondents considered important or most important the skills needed to work and guide teams, to manage - self and time management - advising and accompanying groups. Solving complex problem situations, as opposed to providing quick one-shot prescriptions, was rated as important or most important by 80% of respondents.
Regarding their perceived need for future training, most considered that technical skills were not priority areas for them as they felt that most of their training and exposure was on these aspects. Rather, 70% of respondents placed their training priorities in non-technical areas related to strengthening self-confidence, speaking in front of groups, change management and handling conflicts.
Advisers participating in testing the three advisory methods promoted by New Advisers considered these methods as very useful and 60% stated that they would use that experience in their regular advisory work with farmers. On the other hand, 40% of them predicted that they would not use these methods due to lack of support from their management.
New Advisers' key messages:
- The holistic view of a farm and of the whole farming system will be a core task for advisers.
- There is a great demand from advisers in most countries for training on attitude and relational skills.
- They are highly interested in new tools and related skills to face the future challenges.
- Management has to take this into account, and policies may support the management of competencies.
For more information, go to the New Advisers home page.
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