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On this day, 14 participants were present, including 7 farmers, 2 researchers, 2 advisors, 2 policy makers and administration, and 1 multiplier. The first session on the schedule featured the presentation and welcome by Portuguese RAIN coordination and President of Associação Florestal do Vale do Douro Norte (AFLODOUNORTE). Following this, the Portuguese partner responsible, Marina Castro, introduced the AF4EU project to the audience, also showing a video that offered a concise overview of the project’s goals and potential, provided updates on the project’s progress, and presented the key objectives of the upcoming sessions. The final part of this session was dedicated to introducing the next one, focused on the Local Operational Groups (OGs).

On the second session, a representative of the ministry was invited to talk about evolution and actual situation of OGs in Portugal, opportunities and challenges which they can lead nowadays, and three coordinators presented their experiences in running OGs to inspire participants and to help to better understand the convenience of creating collaborative networks. The OGs presented were Small Ruminants in the Green Douro (“Douro Verde”); Divina – Diversification and Innovation in Beekeeping; and Forestation of Agricultural Land with More Value.

In session 3, it was presented results of the previous RAINs, to show what had been done thanks to AF4EU and a mock-up example of one chapter of the new course design was shown to participants. At the end of this session a questionnaire was distributed to each participant of the local RAIN, to rank potential positives of Work Package 3 – The integration of Agroforestry into Extension Services from 1 to 4 in order of significance, then they had to comment if it was clear about what is facilitation and how does it support groups and networks, and finally two questions with yes/no answers, with an optional comment.
In session 4, participants were divided into 4 groups, gathering different categories of stakeholders in each group. Around coffee break room they had to visualize five posters (A, B, C, D and E) and validate information in each poster through a brainstorming activity. Each poster contained a topic related to setting up a farm business, and all information was derived from previous RAIN workshops:

✓ Poster A – explored key demographic and structural information about farm households.
✓ Poster B – focused on land use and the cropping practices adopted by farmers.
✓ Poster C – highlighted the critical role of agricultural inputs in farming systems.
✓ Poster D – explored the integral role of livestock in farm households.
✓ Poster E – presented data on water resources and the financial status of farming.

In each poster, each one of the organizers was placed next, and collected the different ideas, impressions, and suggestions of the four groups, based on two questions – Do you agree with the data? And, is something missing? Several suggestions were done to improve the information which is collected.
The session 5, the Strategic Canvas specific to the Portuguese RAIN was presented. Each group used a laptop with assigned building blocks preloaded on each pc, they had to score all factors from 1 to 5 by concordance order, and then they discussed the results and answered the questionnaires. This session comprised evaluating the prevalence degree of internal and external factors for their assigned Business Model Canvas building blocks and reviewing the highlighted strategies based on their inputs, using Excel sheets.

After lunch, a field trip was done to a Portuguese RAIN partner farm – Ovinos da Tapada (Murça) – with a silvopastoril practice with rotational grazing in the mountain area. With 260 goats; the main objective is meat production and milk is a subproduct. At the same time goats do vegetation management, not only around the farm but in communal lands and private lands in cooperation with their owners. Nowadays, besides the owner, work in his farm two more people.