Current and future rural youth leaders will receive training in up-to-date content and methods, enabling them to address the local, regional and supra-regional challenges they face.

Seminar participants will be taught skills they require to help rural youth improve their living conditions and offer them long-term prospects for living in rural areas.

They will be motivated to assume responsibility for the sustainable development of their regions. They will learn to plan, organise and implement their own needs-based activities and campaigns and enhance their leadership skills.

Through the international exchange of experiences and networking with experts, participants will receive important stimuli for rural youth work in their home countries, an ability to sense opportunities and changes in sustainable agri-food systems and will be able to engage in a mutual exchange of experiences and knowledge beyond the end of the seminar.

The 14-day seminar is unique because it 

• creates space for exchanges and encounters on a level playing field,
• offers cooperation between participants from around the globe in a safe and peaceful atmosphere,
• whilst overcoming political, religious and cultural boundaries.

Let's take a brief look back at the history of this event: Back in the 1950s, many European rural youth leaders expressed the wish to establish a permanent centre for the exchange of experiences and ideas. This resulted in representatives of FAO (World Food Organisation), UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) and WAY (World Assembly of Youth) convening in Paris on 22 July 1960 and agreeing to initiate the International Leadership Seminar for Rural Youth.

The International Leadership Seminar for Rural Youth is funded by the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture. Since 1987, the Federal Office for Agriculture and Food has acted as coordinator and permanent secretariat on behalf of the BMEL, undertaking all budgetary and administrative tasks needed for the preparation, implementation and follow-up to the seminar.

Countless valuable ideas and project schemes for improving rural youth work and vocational education around the world have been put into practice in recent decades. Over 2,000 participants from almost 150 countries have attended the 31 seminars held to date at the House of Bavarian Agriculture in Herrsching am Ammersee.