In order to replenish the horticulture profession, a mentoring program was launched in Szentes

By: STA Date: 2024. 03. 08. 10:30

In order to ensure the supply of the horticulture profession, the 450-producer Southern Gardeners’ Cooperative is launching a mentoring program together with the Alföldi Agricultural Training Center and the Bartha János Technical and Vocational Training School belonging to the center – the cooperative informed MTI.

(Photo: Pixabay)

The goal of the initiative is to have professionals with up-to-date knowledge and active productive gardeners in 10-15 years. Sándor Nagypéter, the president of the cooperative, said: I want to make horticulture an attractive profession among young people again. A producer organization is viable as long as it has producer members who are innovative, capable of development and willing to work in the long term. An essential condition for this is that as many young people as possible choose horticulture as a career. In addition to theoretical knowledge, students can also acquire up-to-date practical knowledge in the mentoring program. To this end, a modern demonstration garden is created, which provides students with the opportunity to get to know first-hand, in a practical way, the most up-to-date cultivation methods, as well as to acquire effective production and business management skills.

As a first step, variety and technology experiments will be started in the existing greenhouses of the vocational secondary school

They will also create a new 3,500-4,000-square-meter foil-covered greenhouse complex, where experiments and practical training can be carried out in the most modern way. In the garden, it will also be possible to carry out complex, interdependent experimental programs, which in the long term can contribute to the increase of production safety, the sustainability of the environment, and the most modern automatic and robotic technology developments. The cooperating partners also build greenhouses for the young gardeners, where they can grow plants that fit the producer profile of the cooperative. In the medium term, young people can buy the infrastructure necessary for production in installments, with significant support intensity, while performing profitable activities. The cooperative helps the development of complex integrated cultivation conditions, sales security, access to the market, expert advice, quality control, and provides young people with a modern logistics and trade network, the announcement states.

MTI