Focus area: F

Project culture and social responsibility

The term “Agronomist” was coined in the eighteenth century to refer to an expert in agricultural sciences.
In ancient times among the Sumerians, the role of Agronomist was considered sacred and of exclusive priestly attribution. The Agronomists presided over the census and stacking of agricultural areas, foundations of new colonies, and all campaign operations.
The activity of the agronomist was considered sacred because it intervened on fatal aspects for the society connected to food and therefore to the survival of the human population. The Agronomist assumed the priestly and magistracy function, assigning the lands, defining the boundaries, creating irrigation systems, prescribing times and modes of cultivation and harvest. Even today, the agronomist focuses its activity on delicate aspects, potentially dangerous for the environmental balance, intervenes on natural cycles, sometimes altering them voluntarily for the needs of production and food, entering new extremely risky frontiers such as bioengineering.

Goal 2
End hunger, achieve food security, improve nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture

Target 2.a
Increase investments, also through the improvement of international cooperation, in rural infrastructure, agricultural research and training, technological development and the banks of plant and animal genes, in order to improve agricultural production capacity in developing countries, in particular the least developed countries

Goal 4
Provide quality, fair and inclusive education and learning opportunities for all

Target 4.4
To significantly increase the number of young people and adults with specific skills – even technical and professional – for employment, decent jobs and for entrepreneurship by 2030
Target 4.b
Expand the number of scholarships available to developing countries globally by 2020, especially in the least developed countries, small island states and African states, to ensure access to higher education – including vocational training, information and communication technologies and technical, engineering and scientific programs – in both developed and developing countries

Goal 8
Encouraging lasting, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all

Target 8.4
Progressively improve, by 2030, global efficiency in consumption and in the production of resources and attempt to disconnect economic growth from environmental degradation, in accordance with the ten-year framework of programs relating to production and sustainable consumption, with the most developed countries in first line
Target 8.9
Design and implement policies by 2030 to promote sustainable tourism that creates work and promotes local culture and products

Goal 12
Guaranteeing sustainable production and consumption patterns

Target 12.a
Support developing countries in enhancing their scientific and technological capabilities, to achieve more sustainable consumption and production models
Target 12.b
Develop and implement tools to monitor the impacts of sustainable development on sustainable tourism, which creates jobs and promotes local culture and products

Goal 13
Promote actions, at all levels, to combat climate change

Target 13.3
Improving education, awareness and human and institutional capacity with regards to climate change mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction and early warning

Action 6

Design and implementation of training courses and certification of skills on sustainability

In a global vision of the profession that deals with sustainability, the professional figure needs to define professional standards that are internationally recognizable. This challenge aims to standardize training and access to the profession in the various countries in order to make an automatic global recognition system possible over time.

The strong influence of professional activity on aspects of human health, safety and well-being is recognized globally, so much so that it can be defined as a profession of social utility committed to the achievement of a public interest.

The certification of professional skills attests that a specific person evaluated, according to pre-established rules, possesses the necessary and sufficient requirements to operate with competence and professionalism in a specific sector of activity.

The tool that will be put in place will be international guidelines to provide unequivocal criteria and homogeneous schemes to define a certification system for professional skills on sustainable agronomy.

The certification of professionalism and the maintenance of skills are global requirements are the prerequisite for the free circulation of professionals and above all the dissemination of good professional practices in terms of sustainability.

Activable Pilot Projects

Pilot Projects can concern one or more targets of the objectives identified as well as one or more general indicators. For the purposes of verification and measurability and related accounting in the definition of the executive design, specific indicators will be identified among those defined in the Global Indicator Framework 2019 of the SDG.

The pilot projects that can be activated in Action F.6 are the following:

• training courses on the subject of sustainability

• professional standards for sustainability

• masters with topics related to sustainability

• certification of the sustainable profession

• activation of scholarships

• professional twinings