Aequor serves as a link between businesses and agriculture-related vocational institutions in the Netherlands. Aequor applies a unique concept: the business sector and employers participate in developing the curriculum, profession profiles and diploma qualifications for various educational programmes. Producer organisations in the South can use the expertise and experience Aequor has gained in this way to build up knowledge and skills within their members’ businesses.

International forms of cooperation have always been important to Aequor. At the moment, there is great interest among agricultural education institutions in the Netherlands in finding work experience opportunities abroad. Aequor expects that the Agri-ProFocus partnership will provide new fruitful contacts to help fill this need. The partnership can also be used as a means to share knowledge with partners about setting up educational programmes and training activities. Producer organisations in the South have a great need for such knowledge, but most do not have any contacts with organisations such as Aequor.

Aequor can serve as an intermediary for Agri-ProFocus in bringing together producer organisations and businesses in the Netherlands as it has a large network of contacts in the nutrition and food processing industries, especially in the coffee, tea, cocoa, dairy, bread and bakery sectors. Aequor expects that Agri-ProFocus will open up new networks, notice promising developments and provide an optimal link between member organisations. It also hopes that Agri-ProFocus will bring to light the specific educational needs producer organisations have.

Understanding the practical aspects of the agricultural profession and translating these into educational programme requirements is Aequor’s specialty. Aequor wants to use this knowledge and experience to support producer organisations. Cooperation with Agri-ProFocus members may help in achieving this objective. In this way, Aequor wants to make a constructive contribution to development cooperation.