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| Date: | Wed, 4 Apr 2018 19:25:54 +0000 |
| Content-Type: | multipart/alternative |
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Hi everyone,
here is the aggregated input on topic #4 - the future challenges for small farms.
Q4.1/8 - Question: "4.1. Within your region, what are the three main challenges that small farms face in the future? Why? Are these different from past challenges? If so, why?"
1/ From: Viviane CdV <[log in to unmask]> (Italy)
Our future challenges for small farmers in Italy, might be different from those in other parts of the world:
- the presence of a great number of supermarkets that belongs to multinational businesses (and import food in large quantities from abroad - ED: which might even be grown locally)
- although our farmers are bound together and altogether can bring a big consolidated bid to sell our product; multinationals do not seem to notice our presence. (Indeed you can find some of our products, grown abroad, grown with a lot of chemicals, marketed at a very low price)
- in the meantime our products market might grow as a produce of excellence, but it is still grown as a seasonal product, which we prefer not to sell in these multi-national stores.
- The price of the land is increasing
- the price to attend markets is really very high.
- politicians want to cut the strong family ties that bonds a farm family. The idea is that if your mother or son or uncle or cousin give you a hand in the farm, you have to hire them paying taxes and a salary and pension of 3.200 euro per year…..
2/ From: Mark Redman <[log in to unmask]> (Romania)
Sandra Sumane's very importantly highlights in her response to Question 4.1 that there are “other stakeholders who have power to improve small producers’ market access” and that we should be careful not to focus only on “cooperation among farmers” – although this is clearly an important factor.
I like the fact that Sandra specifically mentions the role of consumers, local municipalities and agricultural trainers / advisers as key stakeholders. As inspiration for Romania for increasing smallholder inclusion in the rapidly developing new agri-food value chains here in Romania, we have looked at a number of initiatives from other parts of Europe that aim to INTEGRATE the involvement of these different stakeholders. These initiatives include:
* Strategic planning to develop more competitive and resilient supply chains for smallholders in the Basque Country of Spain (including the allocation of over 50 million EUR of funding in the 2014-2020 rural development programme for the Basque region);
* Using public procurement to create opportunities for local, small-scale producers to supply school kitchens with fresh produce in the east of Scotland;
* Using the so-called LEADER rural development funding mechanism to create a network of over 100 small farmers in Slovenia to supply a newly established public food market;
* Working with agricultural advisers to develop an ‘urban food strategy’ and short supply chain for linking local smallholders with urban consumers and school kitchens in Latvia.
There a lots of ideas and many good examples available!
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