THE PROJECT

Agriculture is a top priority for Europe. Indeed every year the European Union earmarks a large proportion of its budget for agricultural production and the rural environment. Besides economic support, there are a number of laws and development instruments known as CAP, i.e. Common Agricultural Policy, which has changed not only our idea of farming but also how we practice it.

Today farmers receive incentives that are not linked to the amounts they produce, but to their ability to ensure food security and animal wellbeing, and protect the environment through the adoption of best practices and agro-environmental measures. This approach has cut back the agricultural policy management costs. The resources saved are invested in consumer protection measures that ensure high quality food products and environmental protection, and they are used also to adopt agricultural activities that protect the rural and livestock heritage, the water resources, the woods, the landscape and natural resources.

The initiative "The Countryside at school", promoted by ARM and carried out for the second year in a row with the contribution of the European Union, has been designed to tell the children attending the primary and middle schools of Rome and of its Province about the advantages deriving from the CAP reform, the Common Agricultural Policy, and to explain its purposes, goals, methods and results. The fundamental message that we want to get across to the children is the importance of the role played by the rural world and farmers in securing our good health, our wellbeing and the wellbeing of the animal and plant world. Paco is our cute mascot that will accompany the reader on this journey into CAP and into the European Union to discover the rural world which, albeit of critical importance for the fundamental aspects of our life and our future, is all too often unknown or overlooked.

The project is broken down into three distinct sets of actions:

  1. two cycles of classroom lessons devoted to the theme of rural development, its sustainability, the environment, nature, health, a healthy and genuine diet and high quality produce;
  2. a guided visit to a farm;
  3. A contest to choose the best essay and/or best drawing/composition devoted to the themes of the project.

The activities are supported by the use of ad hoc teaching materials:

  • an information brochure on the 12 themes to enable teachers to deepen their knowledge of the CAP
  • teaching data sheets for the teachers to guide their classroom activities
  • an illustrated calendar for students
  • an educational game to be used at school so as to get to know more about the CAP and have fun with Paco.

Calendar of activities

Press conference to launch the project:

3 October 2009 - 11.30 a.m. Villa Celimontana - Rome on the occasion of the Rome Chamber of Commerce event "The Countryside in town" .

1st cycle of classroom lessons:

From 7 October to 6 November 2009 based on the needs of the schools that will be taking part in the project. Each lesson will last about an hour for a maximum of 50 students during which the project will be presented to the students.

Guided visit to a teaching farm in the Province of Rome:

From 9 November 2009 to 29 January 2010 based on the needs of the schools that will be taking part in the project. The full preliminary program envisages a visit to a farm and in particular to its glasshouses, the barn for the cows and the milking room, the oil mill, the olive grove, the vineyard and the museum of vintage farm implements and machines. Activities are envisaged for the students in the glasshouses, in the Taste laboratory and in the Dairy laboratory.

2nd cycle of classroom lessons:

From 8 February to 26 March 2010 based on the needs of the schools that will be taking part in the project. Each lesson will last about an hour for a maximum of 50 students and will be a further opportunity for making the themes dealt with during the initiative more familiar by means of an educational game.

The Contest and the final event

The classes taking part in the project will be able to participate in a contest that will end with a prize-giving ceremony and a celebration day in May. To take part in the contest, whose Rules will be sent out in October 2009, applications need to be made before the end of January 2010 and the essay has to be sent in by end of March 2010.