đź“· Photo: Radoslaw Botev via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
VICTORIA, Seychelles — Seychelles opened its first GreenTraINT Summer School on Monday, hosting 13 to 18 July at the Seychelles Institute of Agriculture and Horticulture campus in Anse a la Mouche a cohort of European and local students for an intensive six-day programme in sustainable agriculture, livestock farming, and biodiversity conservation.
The course is the pilot intensive component of GreenTraINT, short for Green Training International Program for Agriculture, Livestock Farming and Conservation, an Erasmus+ capacity-building project that runs until the end of 2026. It is jointly organised by the University of Bologna through its Department of Agricultural and Food Sciences, Germany’s Coburg University of Applied Sciences, and the University of Seychelles, with field support from the Seychelles Parks and Gardens Authority and conservation partners including Openature and the ZOOM Foundation.
Three pathways anchor the curriculum: sustainable agriculture with a focus on organic farming, soil care and agroforestry; livestock systems covering animal welfare and pasture management; and conservation work including habitat restoration and community engagement. Students move between lectures, laboratory sessions in microbiology, and on-site fieldwork, with international faculty and Seychellois practitioners sharing applied research and field practices.
The University of Bologna published a specific call for its master’s students earlier this year, offering three Erasmus+ GreenTraINT scholarships worth 2,900 euros each to cover registration, travel, accommodation and meals for participation in Seychelles. Coburg University, which leads the project’s work package on data science and analytics for sustainable agriculture, framed the Seychelles summer school as a flagship pilot for the new training modules co-developed under the project, with a strong emphasis on small island developing states.
Beyond the academic content, the summer school is designed to knit together universities, public authorities and private stakeholders across the Indian Ocean and Europe, and to align the Seychelles’ conservation and agriculture sectors with the European Green Deal. Participants from the Seychelles Institute of Agriculture and Horticulture will also have a pathway into the University of Seychelles, opening up formal degree progression for students who began their training at SIAH.
At a time when balancing development and conservation is increasingly framed as a defining test for small island economies, Seychelles is positioning the GreenTraINT summer school as both a skills pipeline and a soft-power statement: that a 121-island state in the western Indian Ocean can be a credible host for European-funded graduate training in land management and biodiversity.
The summer school closes on 18 July with student presentations and a certification ceremony at the SIAH campus.
Sources cited: GreenTraINT official site, “Summer School 2026” announcement; University of Bologna DISTAL, “Bando per la partecipazione alla Summer School Green Training International Program,” 2026; Kooperation International, “EU-Projekt GreenTraINT: Hochschule Coburg unterstutzt nachhaltige Landwirtschaft auf den Seychellen,” May 2026; Seychelles Institute of Agriculture and Horticulture, news; Seychelles Nation, “Seychelles hosts first GreenTraINT,” 14 July 2026.
Source: SN
