Advances in Irrigation and Hydroponics, Competence & Skills Development in Agriculture & Aquaculture

Due to the shortage of the precious resource water and the consequences of the climate change, numerous European policies have been developed and adopted for the protection and sustainable utilisation of water creating a huge demand in particular in the vocational training. Economic factors like privatisation and increasing cost pressure in water management are sharpening these educational needs leading to the demand for specific Vocational Education and Training (VET) opportunities and products as short and tailor-made as possible. The AGRICOM project supports close links to working life in order to make VET more responsive to the labour market's needs in the agricultural sector. AGRICOM facilitates and improves the identification and anticipation of skills and competences' needs and their integration in VET provision and implies also promoting integration of learning with working. In particular AGRICOM supports the implementation of the "New Skills for New Jobs" strategy by taking into account the challenges such as environmental and demographic changes and the related growing job needs also in the agricultural sector. The presented articles are the result of the Open Call for Papers issued by the AGRICOM Consortium in order to raise the awareness of the stakeholders in the agricultural sector concerning competence modelling, with a special focus on hydroponics and irrigation. The scientific articles published in this book are the selected papers of applicants from over six countries received upon the Open Call for Papers issued by the AGRICOM Conference 2013: They were reviewed by the scientific Programme Committee of AGRICOM 2013 in double-blind peer reviews and selected according the review results. In addition all authors of the selected articles could present and discuss their papers at the AGRICOM conference in a speech. To summarise, this book contributes to the current developments and debate on competence modelling in the agricultural and horticultural sectors by presenting latest techniques, offering different views and solutions on competence modelling and by providing suggestions for future improvements European vocational education and training in the agricultural and horticultural sectors.