Completion of the DEMETRA project
The European project DEMETRA: Developing Entrepreneurial Skills & Tools for Women in Agriculture in Rural Areas has come to an end after two years, having produced important results that are expected to contribute to the development of rural entrepreneurial skills and competences among women involved in the agricultural sector.
The project involved a consortium of recognised organisations and universities from six European countries: IMI (Cyprus), GrantXpert Consulting (Cyprus), Heraklion Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Crete), Stowarzyszenie Centrum Wspierania Educkacji I Przedsiebiorczosci - CWEP (Poland), ISOB Institut Fur Sozialwissenschaftliche Beratung GMBH (Germany), Univerza V Mariboru (Slovenia) and Česká zemědělská univerzita v Praze (Czech Republic).
The main objective of the DEMETRA project was to identify the needs and gaps in the training and skills of women in rural entrepreneurship and to develop tools to facilitate training and general knowledge to meet these needs.
In order to achieve this goal, the partners carried out an in-depth analysis of the context in which women in the agricultural sector have to operate. This was done by creating a clear picture of their level of education and competence in the sector and their training needs. They also identified gaps and barriers at the national and European levels. These were used to develop policy recommendations further.
The partners developed an innovative training curriculum based on the research findings to train women in greener, sustainable models of rural entrepreneurship and other business skills. To make the training materials more accessible, the partners developed a digital tool, the DEMETRA platform, which enables women with limited access to education to increase their knowledge of rural entrepreneurship through practical skills and capacity-building training. The DEMETRA platform is a freely accessible digital tool for anyone interested in developing skills and competencies in agribusiness.
In addition, the partners set up a mentoring programme through which mentors provided women who wanted to develop their business ideas in the agricultural sector with up-to-date insights, support, and solutions to the obstacles and challenges they might face in the process. As a result, 21 inspirational videos with advice on entrepreneurship and agribusiness from six different national contexts have been produced and are available through the project website and platform.
The DEMETRA project was implemented under Key Action 2 - Cooperation Partnerships and was funded by the ERASMUS+ programme of the European Union.