ENRD at the ‘International Green Week’ in Berlin, 20-29th January 2012

During this year’s edition of the annual “International Green Week” fair in Germany the ENRD joined DG AGRI stand to celebrate 50th Anniversary of the CAP. Being the largest agricultural meeting in the history of the event, this time the fair attracted over 420 000 visitors. Numerous exhibitors from all over the world came to Berlin to show their products and services related with agriculture and rural development.

Among others, the fair was attended by high-level officials dealing with CAP, including the EU Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development, Dacian Ciolos, and Ilse Aigner, Federal Minister of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection (Germany). Food security and Green Economy were the main thematic highlights of the summit between around 70 agricultural ministers. A special space was reserved for Romania, this year’s official partner country of the International Green Week. For more information, see the official website of the organisers here.

With particular focus on rural development, invited guests from across the EU and the ENRD Contact Point showcased examples of projects that received funding from the EAFRD. The daily presentations on diverse thematic activities performed by the Contact Point and National Rural Networks were followed by successful stories of the project holders from Austria, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Luxembourg, Lower Silesia (Poland) and Scotland (UK). A great number of them was supported by Local Action Groups in respective countries.

For the first time, the ENRD CP collaborated with the NRNs from across the EU during the preparations of the stand’s programme. They were assisting CP in finding interesting projects that could be presented to the visitors of the DG AGRI stand in German language. The preference was given to those ones that are related with food, but not exclusively. During the fair, ENRD was given one hour daily for demonstrating its rural development focus and practical application of the EAFRD support through project examples from selected Member States.

In the presentations, the CP referred to a wide scope of topics within rural development: transnational cooperation, rural entrepreneurship, quality of life in rural areas, short supply chains, innovation and collecting good practices. Each day, the ENRD presentations were illustrated with the video material demonstrating diversity and challenges of rural development in the EU. Additionally, 2 exemplary rural development projects from Germany were displayed (‘Mr Komar’s Bus Project’ and ‘Herb Garden’).

Visitors of the stand had an unique chance to taste diverse specialties produced by the invited project holders, such as: Scottish whiskey, organic juice and honey from Estonia, 40kg barbecue pig from Poland, Finnish sweets and cereal dishes, potato soup and cheese from Austria, as well as wine from the Mosel region. Apart from food, they admired young circus acrobats from Germany and listened to the traditional folk music from Poland. Other features included cooking demonstrations by Euro-Toques Chefs, CAP-Quiz, podium event and school visits.

RDP projects database profiles of the selected projects presented in Berlin:

See also the report of the Estonian NRN on its participation in the Green Week

ENRD videos:

ENRD general video ‘Mr Komar’s Bus’ ‘Herb Garden’ Photogallery