This Handbook is one of the main outcomes of The Rural Facilitator Training in Agricultural Short Food Supply Chains project (funded by the European Commission, Erasmus +, KA2 2019-1-CZ01-KA202-061270). The project aims to provide a better understanding of the working SFSC ecosystem in the partner EU countries (Czech Republic, France, Hungary, Poland, Romania) at the national and European levels. Researches have highlighted the problem that small producers have difficulties separately, so they need to work together to gain market access. In this cooperation, the role of the intermediate players is to have taken over some of these activities from producers. These are supply chain organizers who understand market and agricultural processes thus helping farmers to gain market access. In the first part of our project experts agreed that it is necessary to start a special SFSC organizer training and to develop special eligibility conditions, as well as the training of SFSC advisers, however, these development and support directions are still missing in practice.

Therefore, the partnership committed to exploring the possible ways on how to generate the position of a so-called Rural facilitator, who can plug these gaps across the value chains, and develop the necessary learning materials and training tools to train individuals who intend to take under this new profession in their career.

This handbook is based on research and surveys conducted in all partner countries among target groups and stakeholders of the SFSC field. One of the previous outputs of this handbook was to collect competencies that are necessary for elaborating rural animation and training, which can identify who will be rural facilitators in the short food supply chain specialities. From these competencies the main topics were defined: the facilitators shall understand the key driving forces of farmers’ cooperation, its historical background, psychological processes, conflicts management, food safety risks, consumers’ demands, markets’ changing and logics, other actors, and roles of food chains, regulations, and support systems. As rural animators will be local business angels, they shall know how to be the best partner to farmers and other actors of SFSC (like cooperatives, consumers, municipalities, local craftsmen, local shops, suppliers, etc.). In that way, they can manage the SFSC initiatives to become more sustainable (in the sense of social, economic, and environmental). Due to new competencies in rural areas, farmers will be able to improve their business because they will have strong support in the food process, market increase, traceability, labelling, and rural tourism development.

The knowledge and skills set mentioned in this Handbook are determined by the results of desk search and competency catalogue questionnaires among SCFC participants.  All chapters were adjusted to the SFSC area and contain many topics such as marketing approach, business thinking, basics of leadership, negotiation skills, decision making, risk management, and current context of SFSC situation on the market – domination of multinational corporations, low prices pressure, growing interest of consumers in a food origin and quality, growing preference of local products, or establishing short food supply chains, etc.

All chapters have a unified structure, that starts with main goals, learning objectives, keywords, and then follow with the main body alongside lucid figures. Where necessary the chapters will have country-specific information provided by the partner from the respective country.