Although the profession of shepherd is one of the professions of great importance for the welfare of all countries, it is on the verge of extinction today.
Although shepherding is one of the most important occupations having great importance for the welfare of all countries, it is about to disappear. While the number of sheep and goats continues to increase both in Europe and our country, businesses barely find conscious shepherds to manage their herds properly. Therefore, some businesses choose to reduce the number of animals. Despite the high population of sheep and goats in our city, there are not enough shepherds to manage these herds. Our shepherds are lack of knowledge on the European Union policy and its framework in the role of pastoralism in the sustainable development of territories. Unless we promote their knowldge and make them more concious on shepherding, sustainable high yield production will decrease. Therefore, this situation will affect the national economy negatively. The aim of the project is to raise awareness on shepherding profession and promote knowledge on European standards. Therefore it is aimed to increase the yield of sheep and goat production, including meat and dairy products.
Objectives of the Project
1-To make the shepherds realize their importance in the sector
2- To increase the awareness of our shepherds about sheep and goat breeding
3- Raising the welfare of the shepherds
4- Increasing animal welfare practices in raising sheep and goats.
5- The adoption and implementation of new understanding in sheep and goat farms
6- Developing better strategies to improve cattle businesses
7- To ensure buisnesses to supply a range of products according to the European Union legislation on animal welfare
The project will be carried out with 7 partners. 2 short term training events will be organized in the project. The first of these trainings will be held in Serbia and the second one will be in Greece. The aim of these trainings is to adopt new approaches for vocational education and to ensure that this method will be implemented .After these trainings, it is expected to increase in professional competencies, knowledge and skills of the participants
Moreover; This project will enable the participants to try these new learning methods in their own businesses after observing the good practices in first place.
Local training courses will be organized in order to increase the awareness of the shepherding profession by reaching more shepherds.
These courses include not only reshaping nearly extinct profession of shepherd with the European Union criteria but also different shepherd cultures , local sheep goat breeds living skills in nature as well.
Being socially distant from society due to shepherd profession, an information platform that they can reach will be created to overcome this problem.