The project partners that participated in the workshop were: Landwirtschaftskammer Niedersachsen @lwknds, Germany; Associação de Desenvolvimento Integrado da Rede de Aldeias de Montanha #aldeiasdemontanha, Portugal, Archnetwork @archnetscot, Scotland; Agraren Universitet - Plovdiv, Bulgaria; HBLFA Raumberg-Gumpenstein and Hochschule für Agrar- und Umweltpädagogik, Austria, Asociația AGROM-RO, Romania; and Fundación Monte Mediterráneo #fundacionmontemediterraneo and Fundación Cesefor #Cesefor, Spain.
Experts in agricultural training and/or extensive sheep management from these countries also participated.
This was the fourth workshop of the project, which mainly dealt with the use of innovative tools for extensive livestock farms and ICT for training. Rocío Gallego, from Fundación Cesefor, presented the results achieved with GO Ovinnova #trashumanciaunmodeloinnovadordenegocio, through the presentation: "Application of new technologies for the establishment of holistic herd and livestock management models. IoT and satellite technologies".
At this meeting there was also a follow-up meeting of the project, in which the coordinator, Fundación Cesefor, gave an overview of the status of the tasks that make up the intellectual outputs: IO1, curriculum for the training of shepherds; IO2, manual for shepherd trainers; and IO3, training platform to disseminate mainly the results of IO1.
The curriculum has already been developed. The meeting defined the deadlines for finalising the last tasks for the manual for trainers and the training platform. The final verification of the platform by all partners was also carried out.
On the last day of the workshop we visited the extensive sheep farm of Cándido Morán, who has 1,000 Merino sheep and 40 goats, in the town of Matallana de Torío. We met him in Caldas de Luna, León, during his descent from the mountain pastures where he have spent the summer with his flock. During the visit we were able to see how the "carea leonés" dog works leading the flock, a very important sheepdog in the region, especially in the north of Castilla y León. Alongside the flock there are also the ever-vigilant mastiffs. These dogs are necessary to defend the flock from wolves and bears in the high mountains. Cándido has 8 Leonese mastiffs to carout this important work.
The workshop participants visited Cándido Morán and his herd, a shepherd from León who carries out short-distance transhumance (trasterminancia).
On the afternoon of Friday 4th, we also visited the facilities of "Made in Slow", a Spanish platform created for the recovering and preserving of the rich heritage and traditional values related to transhumance. Alberto Díaz, its founding director, explained the origin of the wool as a raw material used by his organisation. This wool comes from the Merino breed of sheep, precisely from the Merino sheep of the flock visited in the morning and other livestock farmers in the León area who carry out short-distance transhumance (called "trasterminancia" in Spanish). He also gave an overview of the process of making the yarns used in the creations of Made in Slow (https://madeinslow.com).
Visit to the "Made in Slow" entity.
INNOVATIVE TRAINING FOR SUSTAINABLE SHEPHERDS