The new series of Young Village Folk stories is a continuation of the award-winning media project Village Folk, which will bring stories about food production in the European Union onto our television and computer screens, but this time it focuses on young people who are now creating green jobs in different European countries within the industry.

There will be 25 stories presented in eight European countries, Finland, Sweden, Estonia, Croatia, Italy, Austria, France and Bulgaria, which tell about the fresh, innovative ideas of young people, their views on life and work in the agricultural sector, and their wishes and plans for the future.

What food we will eat and how we will produce it is a key issue of this era, in all societies of the world. Multi-corporations, whether with seeds, sprays and pesticides, or genetically modified contents in our foods which they are selling to us, have gained a lot of authority over the human race as a whole. The fight for maximum profit, as quickly as possible, has not only changed our food, but also the land that gives it to us and the water that nourishes it. With uncontrolled emissions and waste, the impacts on climate change are so vast that it's causing an ever increasing threat to the basic survival of us all.
Due to the economic and social changes being a farmer became even less valued, despite farmers are being the only alternative to running for high profits food industry. Therefore, the fact that only 7.5 percent of farmers under the age of 35 are in the EU, and 53 percent of farmers are over the age of 55, is no real surprise. But it's alarming. The EU faces a demographic challenge, with a very small number of young people involved in agriculture, which is also linked to poor access to land, loans and infrastructure within the countryside, the European Parliament's research service confirmed.
Reforms of the EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP 2020) and the provision of sufficient amounts of sustainable food for the rising population, which is projected to soon exceed 9 billion, cannot be implemented through the old generation of farmers, who are slowly following the innovation and technology development, so it is harder adapt to sustainable food production and environmental change.

The younger generation is better educated and follows innovative ideas, technological and communication development, is more flexible and willing to collaborate when it comes to creating agricultural brands. The younger generation also necessarily needs new jobs, those from the cities, as well as those coming from the countryside.

Young people and their existence, the sustainable production of food in the future and creating new jobs are strategically more and more important issues in the European area, even more, they are closely connected with the future of the European Union as well. That is why success stories of innovative, young farmers are examples of creating new jobs, sustainable rural development, biodiversity conservation and the successful coping and adaptation to environmental change in different European countries, all the topics closely related to the public interest and a mission of public Radio and Television Slovenia.

The main part of the multimedia project are video stories about young European farmers, with the participation of three European countries from the north and south, a collaboration between Slovenia and partners from Finland and Croatia. The international media joined online newspapers specializing in agriculture, MaaseutuMedia and the Croatian specialized channel Agricultural TV, which not only reaches farmers in Croatia, but also food producers in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia. Finally, you can follow stories on Facebook and Instagram. An important added value of the content will also be that they will be subtitled for the deaf and hard of hearing, and so becomes accessible to certain groups of people who otherwise find it difficult or impossible to monitor electronic media outlets.

An awareness-raising multimedia project, which will last until June 2017, will be upgraded with a sustainable project entitled Social History Garden, where together with young farmers from Slovenia, Croatia and Finland, we will also join agriculture students as future food producers in collecting old varieties of vegetables. Young farmers from different European countries will set up a network for the collection of old plant seeds, where at the end of the project they will create a historic garden with over one hundred old European vegetables in the spirit of sustainable development and biodiversity, an important part of our future.

Therefore, you are invited to join us on all channels and join in raising awareness that the future of our food supply with quality and nutrition is based on young people!