Representatives of the Ministry of Agriculture and Environmental Protection and 32 agricultural cooperatives and associations from South East and South West Serbia paid a three-day study tour to France with the support of the European Union (EU) and the Swiss Government through the development programme European PROGRES.
In Paris, our agricultural producers and representatives of the Ministry met with representatives of the French Ministry of Agriculture, who informed them about the ways in which the Ministry provides incentives to farmers in France to establish associations, facilitates their commercial networking, and encourages them to introduce new agro-technical measures.
They had an opportunity to see the practical application of this type of organization of agricultural production while staying in Bordeaux, where they exchanged experiences with their EU member state colleagues on the best models for agricultural associations.
"We have seen best practice examples of modern forms of farmers’ associations, through a system of cooperatives and associations that can be beneficial for farmers when it comes to the production and marketing of products on the market, as well as through various types of incentives provided by the state," said Branislav Veljković, from the Rural Development Department of the Ministry of Agriculture and Environmental Protection.
While in Bordeaux, the farmers from South East and South West Serbia visited the National Association of Cooperatives, which is engaged in renting agricultural machinery to its members, on a non-profit basis, using the generated returns exclusively for the maintenance of the machinery. They also visited the Secondary Agricultural School “Etienne Restat” near Bordeaux which, in addition to providing education for young people 15 to 18 years of age, offers adults the opportunity to learn about new methods and technologies applied in agriculture.
Farmers were particularly interested to see how organic production is organized in France, and therefore they visited Interbio, an organization that brings together 2,590 agricultural food producers, of whom 70 percent are engaged in organic production, and their actual annual turnover amounts to 605 million Euros.
For Dušan Miladinović, Director of the "Oblačinska Sour Cherry" Cooperative from Merošina, the visit to France was very beneficial, because cooperative members have plans to switch to organic production.
"To us, the most interesting was a visit to an organic plum orchard, where we saw a simple method of fertilizing orchards with vegetable crops that feed the country with nitrogen and beehives specially positioned for pollination. We also had an opportunity to visit a fruit dryer, very similar to what we want for drying sour cherries in Merošina, "said Dušan Miladinović.
"The European Union and the Swiss Government supported this activity which was designed to respond to the critical needs identified among agricultural producers, namely the specialization of primary production, storing of products, better organization of operations and improved access to markets," said Bojan Marčić, Program Associate in the Competitiveness Sector of European PROGRES.
This group of farmers from 34 municipalities included in the implementation of the European PROGRES Programme was selected based on the first phase of the Call for Proposals for support to agricultural producer groups, for which the EU and the Swiss government provided 80,000 Euros to strengthen their capacities. In addition to this study tour, they had the opportunity in the course of their training to improve their knowledge about the management of cooperatives and associations, finance and marketing, while a separate workshop was held to present the instrument for pre-accession assistance for agriculture and rural development – IPARD.
