Datenbank der Projekte zur ländlichen Entwicklung

This Leader transnational partnership supports the joint development and exchange on topics linked to local food and drink production, including specific skills in cultivation, horticulture, transport, logistics, and apprentice/employment promotion.

Skåne Nordväst Södra (Landskrona, Sweden)

In 2010 Leader Skåne Nordväst Södra made contact with the Argyll and the Islands coordinator to express interest in arranging a meeting between the members of both LAGs. Areas of interests included tourism, environmental, and agricultural projects. Following an initial visit in October 2010, both LEADER project coordinators, together with local development workers ready to facilitate the development of the local projects on the ground, drafted an outline for a Local Produce project and the respective Managing Authorities were notified about their interest to engage in a transnational project.

Building on the Kintyre area’s previous work and achievements in the field of local food production, the overall objective of the transnational cooperation (TNC) project was to provide a resource for (1) increased productivity and (2) improved local market conditions. Coordinating the sharing of experience, skills and resources between local food projects in Tarbert, Campbeltown, Islay and Gigha in Scotland and the Skåne Nordväst Södra Leader area in Sweden, the partnership focused on specific topics such as local food and drink production, logistics and transport, horticulture, cultivation, and employment and training opportunities through the development of rural skills.

Reciprocal visits by Swedish and Scottish delegations were organized to provide insight into measures undertaken to increase capacity and to ensure long-term sustainability of valuable community resources for local food production. Demonstrating how increased collaboration with local businesses (i.e. the creation of training, volunteering and employment opportunities) establishes economic, social and community benefits for rural areas, the partnership shared knowledge across national borders.

The TNC project facilitated learning and knowledge transfer. More specifically, it enhanced knowledge and understanding within the wider community on access to and quality of local produce in the local area. The partnership successfully identified and/or developed the resources necessary to deliver the project’s activities, information and workshops locally. Most importantly, the range of benefits generated by the project included employability, as it supported people in gaining skills and employment experience, in order to progress into longer-term employment. Better levels of co-operation and collaborative working across the projects and businesses in each local area have also been noted.

The opportunity to step outside the local context to see different approaches working - targeting the same areas of activity, as well as answering questions from visitors who operate in a different country, provided greater insight, encouraged to look for different solutions and helped identifying opportunities one otherwise may have not been aware of. To encourage and support ongoing rapport and learning, it could have been beneficial to establish a network to help participants to keep in touch

Among the wider benefits generated by this TNC project was an improved understanding of different approaches to the delivery of Leader in the participating rural areas. In the present case the different rural contexts materialized with regards to the extent and accessibility of target markets, i.e. rural communities located nearby urban or conurbation areas, as compared to isolated rural communities with a limited target market.

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https://www.argyllandtheislandsleader.org.uk/?p=1921

Yvette Bårring

Yvette.Barring@hush.se

+46 708 16 10 21

English, Swedish