Workshop for Developing the Skills of Farmers in the Green Society

Other conference contribution, 2015

Satisfying the information needs of the farmers and enabling the farmers to have the required information literacy skills is of great significance and utmost preference in the green society where public have raised awareness about farming and organic food. Farmers are among the key vocational groups contributing to the agricultural development of the countries. Their efforts raise the quality in the animal feeding and fertile products. Maintenance of high-quality in the agricultural activities depend on their information level and information literacy skills. When their information needs are satisfied and their information literacy skills are supported, they will know how to deal with the agricultural issues. In this workshop, our aim is to put forward the information needs of the farmers in Turkey and Sweden, basing upon the findings to be acquired from the farmers in both Turkey and Sweden with the given questionnaires. Within the frame of the workshop, we will put forward our recommendations about how to improve the information literacy skills of the farmers. Our unique aim is to develop general suggestions framework with the contributions of the workshop participants and put forward our suggestions about municipalities should or can do with the purpose of enabling the farmers to develop their information literacy skills. Our workshop will be in a reflective atmosphere based upon mutually shared ideas. This workshop is promising in that it may be transformed in to EU project aiming to better the information services for the farmers and enabling the development of the information literacy skills of the farmers. Aim: We aim to provide the public librarians and academics with the findings that we collected with the questionnaires applied in Turkey and Sweden. We will inform them about the current needs and information seeking behavior of the farmers in the agricultural fields. Following this phase, we will enable them to develop lifelong learning projects, courses and seminars that will include the farmers in the lifelong learning process and that will foster them to gain and develop information literacy skills. Method; Workshop will be carried out with non-formal educational methods. It will be a participant-focused applied workshop which requires the intensive interest and mental and physical participation of the participants. They will put forward their valuable contributions. They will work in groups and each group will develop a key tool. This tool will be related with gaining one skill, more than one skills and tools developed throughout workshop may be used in the public libraries following the workshop. Workshop will be future oriented. As the instructors of the workshop, we aim to disseminate the workshop outputs and enable them to be sustainable. Target group: Our target groups is the academicians and public librarians, people who work in Green ICT field who will have the key role in guiding farmers. Required Materials: Circle type sitting system, boardmarks, board, laptop and poster papers