CEJA, the European Council of Young Farmers is an umbrella organization representing young farmers from all over Europe. It creates dialogue between young farmers and European decision makers and put issues of importance for young farmers on the agenda of EU policy makers. These are topics such as: access to land, credit, the need to strengthen education and training of young farmers. CEJA consists of 33 member organizations from 23 countries, including an observer representative from the United Kingdom and an associated member organization from Serbia. Project Officer at the CEJA secretariat located in Brussels, Alice Minichini, explains, that EUREKA is the first Horizon2020 project, the organization has joined, as they normally work within the Erasmus program, an altogether different ecosystem of projects. “It is interesting and challenging, and we are very keen to get to know the broad range of multi actor participants involved in the project,” Alice says. CEJA is active in both work package 1, focusing on mapping the multi actor projects, work package 2, aiming at getting to know the users of the Farmbook as well as work package 5 that concerns developing an active multiactor community and work package 6 that regards project management.
“With our access to young farmers, we hope to inspire and contribute with valuable knowledge and understanding of young farmers, but also to secure an interesting and accessible Farmbook in a design and language accessible for farmers and not just targeted at researchers and advisors,” Alice explains. Currently CEJA is active in the ongoing work in work package 2 and have thus interviewed different young farmers from Malta, Italy and Portugal.
Learn more about the EUREKA project here learn more about CEJA here.
