Designing and running training schemes for farmers are critical steps to support a global strategy to foster sound cooperation between research centres and rural entrepreneurs to improve overall competitiveness of a rural area. This paper outlines the problematic environment of planning and implementing these schemes with a specific emphasis on the great number of difficulties and critical knots hampering the effectiveness of these initiatives: a “paradigm shift ”, and updated approaches and tools, are required firstly to convince decision makers to adopt a renewed and a more participatory approach in training to improve and increase impacts of these schemes and make the involved public and private investments more effective and efficient.