Forum Synergies' Newsletter 1/14

Workshop "Local Food Matters!" - defending simplified and proportionate rules for local and traditional food.

The international workshop organised by Forum Synergies and Slow Food Bitola and in cooperation with PREPARE, Terra Madre Balkan, SWG and ESSEDRA focused on feasible options for local and small-scale food producers. More than 60 participants from 15 different countries - mainly Balkan – and from producer, administration and civil society side discovered Macedonian food realities. Built on these realities and on the participants’ experience, we identified not only brakes but also some proposals to support small-scale production, traditional food and local food chains. They are included in a common declaration which – among others - ask for obligatory provisions for flexibility and simplified rules for small producers, taking into account the scale of production, the marketing distance and direct marketing situation.
Visit our website to download the declaration, discover the Austrian “good example” or see photos in the photogallery.

Announcement: Youth Scholarships are open for registration!

Forum Synergies offers a trainee exchange programme. We are addressing young people interested in discovering a rural project, a rural organisation or another specific activity related to sustainable local & rural development.
This programme offers young people the possibility to spend up to one month in a place of their choice in order to discover and learn from the experiences and practices of people &organisations dedicated to sustainable local & rural development.
We are looking for host organisations and trainees. For guidelines and criteria, please visit our website! The registration is open now! The online documents are available on our website! In case of any questions, please don't hesitate to contact Simone Matouch, info@forum-synergies.eu

Civic Dialogue : call for interest

"CIVIC DIALOGUE" stands for a new concept of how to approach the broad topic of democracy. Our intention is to deal with the dialogue between different stakeholders when it aims at influencing policies which have a strong impact on territories with regard to agriculture, food, environment and social cohesion ; and contributing to the solution of local or regional issues of sustainable rural development.
In a first step we want to learn from what is already going on in Europe and what your objectives and expectations would be. We thus invite you to use and fill our online form and check again the Action sheet!

Save the date! September 19-21, 2014 ; European Rural Sustainability Gathering 2014 - in the French Alps (Beaufortain), FR

Sad News!
Dear friends and partners of Forum Synergies,
with great regret we have received the sad news that our colleague and enthusiastic co-worker for sustainable rural development Nenad Nikolic has all of a sudden passed away. The still very lively impressions from our coming together at the occasion of the "Local Food Matters" workshop two weeks ago in Macedonia make it hard to believe that these words were the last to have been spoken to each other. On behalf of Forum Synergies we send our warm sympathies especially to his family and all those who will miss him so much.

Youth in the focus!
It is often not the easiest to give life to a great vision, to make sustainable rural development really happen. We especially want to support and encourage the young generation to take action! Some of those who already are quite active are given the possibility to present themselves here - the floor is yours!

Future Farmers in the Spotlight : films about the new generation of young organic (peasant) farmers in Europe. Future Farmers in the Spotlight is an initiative that aims to inspire and encourage the next generation of sustainable farmers. 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 many new young farmers’ initiatives.

Since the start of Future Farmers in the Spotlight in August 2012, the initiators Joris van der Kamp and Juliane Haufe, who themselves have the wish to start up a farm in the near-by future have so far visited and filmed 16 young inspiring farmers projects in Norway, Denmark, Ireland, The Netherlands, Germany, Greece, France and Spain.

Comprised to a short film, each project realised by a young farmer or group of young farmers is unique and it shows that although very challenging it is possible to start up farming, even with little capital or no land. 8 short films can be seen online: http://future-farmers.net/.

Latvian Rural Youth Forum

Association “Latvian Rural Forum” (LRF) is promoting balanced development of Latvian rural territories and one of LRF initiatives is the Rural Youth Forum. The aim of the event is to promote youth participation in sustainable development and the quality of life in local areas. Rural Youth Forum annually gathers youth from all around Latvia for two days to exchange experiences, to search for new solutions, learn and inspire each other for their future actions.

Tradition of Rural Youth Forum started in 2010 when participants worked on methods for youth involvement in the implementation of the local development strategies. During next events main focus was on creating innovative ideas for the local development, different ways of solving problems of rural areas and increasing efficiency of youth participation.

More about Latvian Rural forum: http://eng.laukuforums.lv/ and http://llf.partneribas.lv/

Rural Development Network of the Republic Macedonia

The RDN of RM is a union of civil associations. Founded in 2010 the main goal is to demonstrate a structured approach in mobilizing rural communities to become stronger agents of local developments and participate in rural policy at local, regional, national and EU level.
Giving support to young farmers is one field of activities - Read one of our success stories about Tome Timov - a

young farmer, enthusiastic about living in the rural area and actively working for keeping the youth in the countryside and preserving the tradition and culture of the villages. http://ruralnet.mk/

Slow Food Youth Germany: Eat the future you want!

The Slow Food Youth Network (SFYN) is an international network of young people who bring about changes in the field of food production and consumption. It was founded by a number of enthusiastic and motivated young people with a passion for good, clean and fair food, and with an interest in sustainability issues. SFYN is a globally widespread network. You can find us all over the world, from Brazil to Indonesia and from the USA to France and everything in between.

Slow Food Germany is organising "Schnippeldiscos", "Eat-Ins", cooking events

bringing together all differnt kinds of stakeholders interested in good, clean and fair food. Info-Flyer-Download, visit us on http://slowfoodyouth.de/