Course

Welcome to CarboNostrum Course!

The CarboNostrum Course is an innovative blended course designed to equip learners with the necessary knowledge, skills, and responsibility and autonomy to actively promote sustainable agricultural practices that protect and preserve soils and ecosystems.

The CarboNostrum e-Learning platform creates a high-quality learning tool, user-friendly and visually attractive, assessed by farmers and experts. The course is available in english, portuguese, italian, greek, spanish, and turkish languages.

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Climate Change is a significant and multifaceted challenge that continues to impact humanity on a global scale. Its origin is linked to early stages of human impact on the natural environment, and the social, cultural, and economic disparities it has sprung over the last few centuries.

Although it is a global issue, the responsibility, and negative impacts are not globally distributed. The ecological fragility of certain landscapes will result in amplified and accelerated impacts, exacerbating their pre-existing vulnerability, which is further compounded by the historical events of the past few centuries. The agricultural sector is highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, and the environmental consequences of unsustainable food production cannot be underestimated.

Mediterranean-type ecosystems are particularly fragile regarding agricultural activity and food production due to long and dry summers, followed by autumns of intense rainfall, which creates maximum erosion rates on soils that are already poor in organic matter. Southern Europe, especially Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece, and Türkiye, present clear environmental disparities when compared to their northern counterparts.

However, there is hope. Smallholder farmers and young and new agricultural producers can have an essential role in the fight against climate change. The CarboNostrum course intends to be the first step to providing climate change mitigation and adaptation knowledge for the agricultural sector. The current science behind the causes, effects, and potential solutions to climate change is widely acknowledged, indicating that the next step is to put it into practice, by combining contemporary research and technology with traditional agricultural practices.

In the face of climate change and enhanced desertification, CarboNostrum Blended Course will provide:

1) technical and material conditions to increase climate resilience and promote soil parameters such as organic matter and water retention capacity;

2) a methodological framework to provide economic resilience in a business that is fragile by definition, and even more in a hotter and drier environment, since there is the risk of reduced crop yield and loss of income;

3) complementary education and training to have access to more recent knowledge regarding ecosystem services and how to create market value from the very foundations of their activity, and the environmental services they provide (regulation, support, provision, and cultural).

Click to learn more about the CarboNostrum project background and Course Framework!

What will you achieve?

CarboNostrum Blended Course aims to empower smallholder and new farmers across Mediterranean Europe to rethink or change their land management practices to effectively combat climate change and desertification, increase their economic sustainability, and be a valuable step towards a sustainable and fair future, where no one is left behind.

What topics will be covered?

Climate change and desertification in the Mediterranean region (expected effects in susceptible areas and vulnerable communities)

Understanding the carbon cycle of land-climate and plant-soil feedbacks: soil carbon sequestration in a smallholder environment

Application and analysis of mitigation and adaptation tools in poor and degraded lands (land use/occupation, management, and valuation) under climate change

Back to basics: the role of traditional knowledge in climate-smart agriculture in a changing world

Assessment of soil parameters and designing a baseline scenario with readily available tools

Click to learn about crucial information to help you successfully navigate and benefit from CarboNostrum Course!

CarboNostrum Blended Course is an innovative blended course, developed as an Erasmus+ Programme project 2021-1-PT01-KA220-VET-000033188, that includes e-learning, synchronized sessions, and face-to-face meetings. The course follows a theory-practice methodology that allows a rapid transference of knowledge and competencies (theoretical framework; exemplification, peer learning, application to real problems, and discussion of real cases) by equipping learners with knowledge and competencies that will empower their role in providing more sustainable agriculture practices that actively preserve the fields.

The CarboNostrum Course is composed of 6 modules, with a total of 150 hours of average planned duration:

	114 hours of online training
		66 hours of asynchronized online sessions \| autonomous work
		48 hours of synchronized online sessions
	36 hours of face-to-face training \|practical Labs and in the field training

Course Modules

	M1 - Climate change and desertification in the Mediterranean region
	M2 - Understanding the carbon cycle of land-climate and plant-soil feedbacks: soil carbon sequestration in a smallholder environment
	M3 - Applying and analysing mitigation and adaptation tools in poor and degraded lands
	M4 - Back to basics: the role of traditional knowledge in climate-smart agriculture in a changing world
	M5 - Assessment of soil parameters and designing a baseline scenario with readily available tools
	M6 - Creating value from ecosystem services, carbon cycling, and land restoration