Forum Synergies Newsletter 3/2013

Reminder: 1st Rural Reality Check at the occasion of the 10th Estonian Rural Parliament , 8.-11th Aug.2013
Take the chance! The implementation of the new Rural Development Plans is on the way. We will translate the bureaucratic and technical paper of the new CAP into a practical approach! We will help you to find the right "entrance door" and we will learn together what is important in writing a good RDP.
The motto of the 2nd day will be: "Democracy - get practical". Exchange of practical experiences and finding ways of how we can make our democracy work will be at the focus of this day.
What we ask from you? We invite you to send us beforehand your most urgent questions, needs and visions. Programme
Please send your inputs to: info@forum-synergies.eu before August 2th, 2013.

Welcoming Liljana on board !
Forum Synergies is welcoming a new member of the board: Liljana Tanevska, MK! For several years, Liljana was working for CeProSARD, Center for Promotion of Sustainable Agricultural Practices and Rural Development in Macedonia, she was coordinator of local development. Liljana has a scientific background in macroeconomic, with particular focus of fiscal policies and rural development. Currently she is PhDc. Her research is focused on fiscal decentralization effects on rural development. She gives lectures on Local Development and Local Self Government in a Business Academy. Some of her favourite topics: local food, youth in sustainable rural development, fiscal policies and rural development.

ARC2020: “CAP deal weak – but options worth fighting for”: The deal struck today amongst negotiators of EU governments, the EU Commission and the European Parliament on the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) betrays initial ambitions and hopes of “public money for public goods” and a greener and fairer CAP... Read ARC2020 full press release on CAP Agreement after trilogue negotiations here.

TP Organics' Stakeholder Forum : Organic solutions for sustainable agriculture. On 25 June, TP Organics' stakeholders discussed the priorities of the platform in view of the new EU research & Innovation policy. Priority topics of the work programme of Horizon2020 were discussed and TP Organics will publish an Action Plan for Innovation and Learning. It will provide policy recommendations for achieving innovation, based on the experiences made in the organic sector. Read more

First Latvian Rural Communities Parliament was held on June 7-8th. During discussions in working groups, sharing experience and listening to each other, 190 participants searched for new solutions to the old long-term problems. As a result, an action plan was made that is designed for coherent actions of communities, municipalities, ministries and Saeima for the next two years. Read more

“Leading the Way – Communities 2020”. The international conference held in Pembrokeshire in May 2013 celebrated the community work of PLANED and the significance of community work in rural areas across the EU. The LEADER methodology, which underpins much of the rural development work was highlighted during the two-days conference. Read more

Mountain hay meadows - hot spots of biodiversity and traditional culture. One of the comment from this conference held in May in Romania is that: “The mayors, farmers and business owners from the region were surprised to find that their meadows attracted such interest and appreciation from the international delegates. Local awareness of the international importance and exceptional biodiversity of these meadows may help them to survive and thrive.” Read more

Calling for collaboration on Future farmers in the spotlight - Success stories of young farmers from all over Europe! Future Farmers in the Spotlight is a film project about innovative and courageous young farmers that have managed to set-up or to take over an ecologically sustainable farming business. It strives to enable future agricultural entrepreneurs to build knowledge and to learn from each other’s experiences regarding innovative and viable concepts, opportunities and difficulties when starting up a farm. Ultimately Future Farmers in the Spotlight aims to contribute in sowing the seeds for the set-up of many new young farmers’ initiatives. Since the start, 9 young inspiring farmers have been filmed in Denmark, Ireland, The Netherlands, Germany and Norway and short videos can be seen on the internet: http://future-farmers.net. For this year’s summer and autumn Future Farmers in the Spotlight is looking forward to film more young farmers in Southern Europe. Would you like to contribute or do you know a young farmer with an inspiring concept that the world should know about? Get in contact; we look forward to hearing from you!
Contact: Juliane Haufe juliane@future-farmers.net

Calling for collaboration about social integration into the CSA: from URGENCI member from Croatia/Italy. “Alexander Medic has been involved for years in a GAS (Gruppo di acquisto solidale, Italian version of CSA) in Calci, a small city near Pisa and has been working for the dissemination of this kind of CSA in Croatia and Serbia. In this moment of great economic crisis, in Italy there are a lot of talking and searching of new solutions, and with his group, they are looking for models that include people- consumers with lower income. They are specially interested in embarking onto a sliding scale and want to investigate the process of how actors managed to reach an agreement. Concretely, they need to know for example how did you manage to convince higher income consumer to pay more, how you define the criteria of payment? What are the critical points etc. The plan is to share this knowledge and concrete guidelines with the Italian GAS network.
Contact: Aleksandar Medic (a.medic42@gmail.com)