European Medicinal and Aromatic Plant (MAP) Farming, Processing and Training Alliance
Taking into consideration the notes and revisions from the submission of 2019, we emphasise on the rationale, I.O, on the enlargement of the partnership, definition of deliverables with added value.
The challenges associated with the wild harvest, post-harvest handling, conservation and quality of indigenous medicinal and aromatic plants (MAPs) and their role in the botanical sector are well established; they relate to lack of specific skills, unsustainable harvest, an ageing farmer population and in some cases significant risk aversion. The wild harvest of various medicinal and aromatic plant populations provides the raw materials for the development of plant-based pharmaceuticals and herbal products in both traditional and modern healthcare systems. Conservation of medicinal and aromatic plants can play an important role in contributing to the livelihoods of small-scale farmers and others in rural, inter-urban and urban communities. 
The potential gain environmentally and economically across the target sector is enormous and training as well as technology adoption can provide improved, efficient, sustainable harvest, overharvest handling and strengthen rural livelihood opportunities. Hence, the project aspires to support the development of sustainable management strategies of wild harvests as well as easy-to-use post-harvest handling practices for various indigenous medicinal and aromatic plant species at local and regional food systems and enable very small farmers, wild herb collectors and rural entrepreneurs who simply lack the legal basis for direct sales of processed products to enhance their income.
To achieve this, the project will link scientists with theoretical and methodological expertise with practitioners and stakeholders knowledgeable about the medicinal plant production value chain. Medicinal Aromatic Plants (MAPs) can play an important role in contributing to the livelihoods of small-scale farmers and others in rural,inter-urban and urban communities (MAPs) can help small-scale farmers to strengthen their livelihoods directly through income generation from their trade as well as health care provision.
The opportunities abound in terms of MAPs as they can contribute to:
• Small-scale farmers enhancing their knowledge, skills and capacity in terms of a new enterprise as well as enhancing their environmental awareness, especially in terms of wild harvests, and its importance to them;
• Enhancing small-scale farmers knowledge in terms of MAPs role in traditional healthcare systems;
• The variety of products that can be derived from a single MAP;
• Small-scale farmers having more varied farm products to trade;
• Having more farm products to sell enables a more balanced flow of cash income to the farm household throughout the year, especially in terms of processed MAPs; increased incomes for small scale farmers as well as other members of communities who participate in production/ gathering of MAPs;
This exciting education-focused project will generate concrete actions for knowledge transfer, through the organization of workshops, training activities and peer-to-peer learning for wild herb collectors and rural entrepreneurs. Thus, the project will contribute towards the development of a highly trained and technology-ready workforce within the botanicals sector in order to support conservation, healthcare and livelihoods. It will have additional “down-stream” educational benefits for small-scale farmers themselves.
The project will also develop a training and a validation procedure for those interested in sustainable small-scale medicinal plant production.
WildMAPsFiT – Pilot Training of Herbal Hunters
WildMAPsFiT – Pilot Training of Herbal Hunters” webinar focuses on the scientific field of non-wood forest products and consists of a five days webinar on the following topics:
1. Conservation & Utilization of the Flora
2. Collection of Wild MAPs/ fruits
3. Processing of the Wild MAPs / fruits
4. Future Opportunities for MAPs/ fruits
Who is it for: Small-scale farmers, wild herb collectors, rural entrepreneurs, or postgraduate in the field of agro-food who wish to pursue a professional activity.
When: 18 – 22 October 2021, 11.00 – 15.00 (EEST Eastern European Summer Time, Greece)
Percorso Erasmus+ didattico gratuito per interessati al settore piante officinali coltivabili 18/22 Ottobre
Il progetto azione chiave 2 WildMAPsFiT supporta lo sviluppo di strategie di gestione sostenibile dei raccolti selvatici e pratiche di gestione post-raccolta di facile utilizzo per varie specie di piante medicinali e aromatiche selvatiche nei sistemi alimentari locali e regionali.
“WildMAPsFiT ” è un progetto europeo diretto ad operatori del settore e semplici interessati al settore e promuove l’imprenditoria agricola giovanile e la coltivazione di piante officinali sul territorio
“WildMAPsFiT ”mette a disposizione strumenti, materiali e risorse utili ad approfondire nuove metodologie. Il webinar WildMAPsFiT – Pilot Training of Herbal Hunters” si concentra sul campo scientifico dei prodotti forestali e consiste in un webinar di cinque giorni sui seguenti argomenti: 1. Conservazione e utilizzo della flora 2. Raccolta di piante officinali e frutti selvatici 3. Elaborazione delle piante officinali ed erbe medicinali 4. Opportunità imprenditoriali per piante officinali ed erbe medicinali A chi è rivolto: agricoltori, raccoglitori di erbe spontanee, imprenditori rurali o laureati nel settore agroalimentare che desiderano intraprendere un’attività professionale. Quando: Piattaforma ZOOM 18 – 22 ottobre 2021, 11.00 – 15.00
SITO PROGETTO: https://wildmapsfit.eu/
PROFILO LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/company/wild-maps-fit
PROFILO FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/WildMAPsFiT
Officially concluded the Pilot Training of Herbal Hunters WildMAPsFiT
Today we officially closed the Pilot Training of Herbal Hunters WildMAPsFiT .The webinar focused on the scientific field of non-wood forest products.
The sessions were dedicated to train technical staff who knows medicinal and aromatic plants by its botanical properties, under the appropriate ecological conditions.
To ones who can grow highly-efficient plants by the correct methods and nature-friendly applications and can implement the necessary maintenance on time in this process.
More into specific topics were:
1.Conservation & Utilization of the Flora
2. Collection of Wild MAPs/ fruits
3. Processing of the Wild MAPs / fruits
4. Future Opportunities for MAPs/ fruits
As soon as possible it will be possible to follow recorded sessions and many other educational materials.
Please follow the project windows
https://wildmapsfit.eu/
Galicia Innovation Days from 25 October 2021 till 29 October 2021
600 participants from more than 40 countries and 4 continents. The 2021 edition of Galicia Innovation Days became a great space for debate on science and the future, an exhibition of innovative projects and success stories and a meeting point for researchers, companies, entrepreneurs and institutions. Organised by FEUGA and the Department of Education, Culture and Universities of the Xunta de Galicia, this four-day event provided a venue for a WildMAPsFit workshop.
Dimitris Fotakis – project coordinator and researcher at the Forest Research Institute of the Hellenic Agricultural Organization – was the one in charge of presenting the objectives and interest of WildMAPsFit.
His presentation was introduced by Nuria Rodríguez, also a partner of the project and Technology Transfer Manager in EU Programmes at FEUGA.
The workshop included a short tutorial on the use of the platform developed by the WildMAPsFit partners and the presentation of the two first modules already loaded and ready for use and study- one for collectors and one for processors.
According to Mr. Fotakis, these modules were created after asking several collectors and processors of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants about their needs and finding a solution to their answers.
The training is completed by answering questionnaires that test the trainee’s knowledge and lead to a certification, which guarantees the individual’s ability to preserve crop biodiversity.
The importance of being at the centre of a network was also highlighted. As Mr. Fotakis explained, in order to communicate the existence of this platform, it is vital to be in contact with different stakeholders and to engage with organisations that have the capacity and interest to disseminate it.
Our website is now accessible in all project languages!
The WildMAPsFit website was translated into Greek, Turkish, Spanish and Italian thanks to the cooperative work of all the partners, who join forces to translate every page from English to their native language.
Since now on, you can read every piece of information about the project in the language you feel most comfortable with, or learn how to say Our work in five different languages, for example.
The structure of the website is the same one, on the top menu you still have Home, Our work, Knowledge centre, Community and News – but you can also find it as Αρχική σελίδα, Η δουλειά μας, Κέντρο γνώσεων, Κοινότητα and Νέα in Greek or as Inizio, Il nostro lavoro, Documentazione, Comunità and Notizie in Italian.
You can also download the WildMAPsFit brochure in all five languages! It includes all the information about the project, its main objectives and the key aspects of our training plan. You can find it on the Knowledge centre – check it out!
Event: The CAP 2023-27 explained at University of Bari
On days 7th and 8th April, the University of Bari will hold a conference regarding the new common agricultural policy (CAP) for the period 2023-27. Under the title “Tools for sustainable agricultural growth” the conference aims to share light on what is new and what will remain the same for these upcoming years.
“For the period 2023-27, the common agricultural policy (CAP) will be built around ten key objectives. Focused on social, environmental and economic goals, these objectives will be the basis upon which EU countries design their CAP strategic plans.”
European Commission
Starting on Thursday, the first day will be hosted by the University of Bari at the Aula Leogrande Ex Palazzo delle Poste. The online and in person event will gather – in this first session – experts from different universities of Italy to talk about the new agricultural measures, how will affect the regulation of the country and which are its opportunities and limits. To be able to see the bigger picture, an expert from France will compare the situation of both countries.
The second day – hosted by the Dipartimento di Giurisprudenza at the Aula Moro, Palazzo del Prete – will focus on how the CAP administrative system works. Everything related to payments, how to get the right information and which are the instruments to be used by the agricultural companies will be explained in this second session of the event.
You can check the full programme for more information here.
How to create a methodology for the design of a training platform
The main objective of WildMAPsFiT is, as you may know, to create a contemporary and innovative curriculum of medicinal and aromatic plants’ cultivation, harvesting, processing, storage and marketing for young farmers, collectors, processors, that really adjusts to their necessities. And for that sake, the most important thing is to know what are the needs of these groups.
The first deliverable of the project describes the methodology to be used in focus groups – small groups of stakeholders with different professions, ages, gender… – to discuss the real situation of the sector in each country and its near future. Questions such as “Based on your experience, what are the challenges in your country’s MAP sector?”, “What type of MAP and cosmetic products can enhance farmers’ or foresters’ income?” or “Can organic farming of medicinal plants be more profitable than conventional?” are aimed to gain a better knowledge and understanding of the market situation.
After having carried out the focus groups, the next step is to do some research on which are the main subjects of interest for the creation of the training platform. What topics are they lacking information on? What would they be interested in getting a certificate? What practices are they willing to learn and apply?
All this process of discussion led the researchers of the project to be able to adjust the contents of the training to the requirements of the job as a collector, processor or farmer of Medicinal Aromatic Plants.
The whole process is described in detail in the Deliverable 1: Methodology for the implementation of a TNA – Training Needs Analysis – for Wild MAP Collectors that you can now read on our website. It is public, go check it out!
International Day of Plant Health will be celebrated annually from now on
The UN has decided to establish an annual day to raise awareness of the importance of plant health. From now on, International Plant Health Day will be celebrated every 12 May.
The initiative, driven by Zambia, was one of the legacies of the International Year of Plant Health, which took place in 2020-2021. A good plant health is a fundamental piece of the health of the planet, the diversity of species and our own health.
Up to 40% of food crop losses are related to plant pests and diseases, aggravating hunger all around the world and putting at risk agricultural sustainability. Climate change, globalisation and decades of agricultural intensification are key factors of the emergence and spread of further pests and diseases.
But not only food crops are affected by this issues, Medicinal Aromatic Plants are also in danger due to the loss of biodiversity associated with these factors.
The International Day of Plant Health, as remarked by FAO, has five specific objectives:
1. Increase awareness of the importance of keeping plants healthy to achieve the UN 2030 Agenda, particularly SDG 2 (Zero Hunger).
2. Campaign to minimize the risk of spreading plant pests through trade and travel, by triggering compliance with international plant health standards.
3. Strengthen monitoring and early warning systems to protect plants and plant health.
4. Enable sustainable pest and pesticide management to keep plants healthy while protecting the environment.
5. Promote investment in plant health innovations, research, capacity development and outreach.
Mark May 12th on your calendar to celebrate this significant day!
