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A new edition of the EAFRD Projects Brochure on ‘Supporting Rural Business’ is now available online. It showcases examples of Rural Development Programme (RDP) projects that either support individual rural businesses or aim to create the kind of enabling environment that allows businesses to prosper in rural areas.

The projects highlight inspiring examples of how to provide advice, training and networking opportunities to rural businesses as well as targeted investment in the digital and physical infrastructure needed by rural business, both on-farm and in other rural sectors of activity.

For electronic and paper subscriptions to ENRD publications, please write to subscribe@enrd.eu.

An ENRD Seminar (13 June 2017 – Brussels, Belgium) discussed practical opportunities and key factors for enabling resource-efficient use and management of water and soils through the Rural Development Programmes (RDPs).

Resource efficiency is key for the long-term functioning of the rural economy and its true benefits need to be communicated better to farmers. Best agricultural practices that can be used within resource-efficiency strategies at a territorial scale, also need further dissemination.

The RDPs can be crucial in supporting resource-efficient land management practices, knowledge transfer, advice, cooperation and physical investments. The Seminar highlighted the need to improve the use and strategic combination of such RDP Measures.

The ENRD Contact Point has produced summaries of the way the Rural Development Programmes will contribute to achieve the six Priorities of EU Rural Development policy and the related areas of intervention (18 Focus Areas) in the 2014-2020 programming period.

The summaries provide aggregated information on the expected achievements and results, targets and interventions planned for each Priority and Focus Area (based on programme data as of March 2016). See also concise overviews, highlighting selected content of each national and regional RDP (prepared at the time of programme approval).

The ENRD Contact Point has published a set of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) concerning Areas Facing Natural or Other Specific Constraints (ANCs) – Rural Development Measure 13.

The FAQs include general questions on the designation of ANCs, as well as specific ones relating to the process of establishing ANC delimitations, biophysical criteria, fine-tuning, mountain areas, areas with specific constraints, and payment schemes.

An ENRD workshop (1 June 2017 – Brussels, Belgium) explored the topics of Transnational Cooperation (TNC) and Innovation under LEADER. It discussed the use of a practitioner-led approach as a networking and capacity-building tool.

The ENRD Contact Point supports two dedicated Practitioner-led Working Groups (PWGs) intended to discuss and examine LEADER/CLLD implementation issues, and propose practical and widely applicable solutions to overcome these. In this context, the event saw an exchange on: simplified costs; evaluation of cooperation projects; self-evaluation of Local Action Groups; stimulating local innovation; animation; and rural broadband.

A recent ENRD workshop explored how the National Rural Networks (NRNs) approach regional and local networking to reach out to stakeholders more effectively.

The event saw an exchange of practical experience, including challenges and potential solutions, and showcased the approaches of selected countries with different regional models.

The European Broadband Competence Office (BCO) Support Facility is now up and running in Brussels. The facility will support the work of the European network of Broadband Competence Offices that was announced by the European Commission in 2016. The main mission for 2017 is to contribute to the creation, consolidation and animation of the BCOs network in Member States.

The BCOs aim to create and disseminate knowledge to national and regional actors on how to invest effectively in broadband projects and to exchange good practices in rolling-out of high-speed broadband internet, notably into rural areas. It forms part of the EU’s Broadband Europe initiative.

The launch event of the BCO network will take place on 20 November 2017 in Brussels, followed by the 2017 European Broadband Awards. This year, for the first time, the awards will include a new category dedicated to ‘territorial cohesion in rural and remote areas’.

The European Investment Project Portal (EIPP) now accepts smaller projects (minimum € 1 million). This aims to boost the visibility of projects led by municipalities, regions and start-ups to a large network of international investors.

Get inspired by agriculture and rural development projects already on the platform.

Find out more about investment opportunities in rural areas and how these can be strategically combined with support from the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development – read Chapter 5 of EU Rural Review 21.

A recent event, co-organised by Euromontana and the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy, discussed a place-based and territorial integrated approach for the future EU Cohesion policy and how this policy should address the specificities of mountain areas.

The event considered developing “an agenda for mountainous regions” that could be “at the heart of an EU strategy on the development of mountainous regions”. Find out more about the event and read the full press release.

A new online food price monitoring tool launched by Eurostat displays price changes in food products along supply chains across Europe.

The tool provides agricultural, import, producer, and consumer prices and shows to what extent price increases and decreases are transmitted from one stage of the supply chain to the next, what impact they have and how quickly. The tool is available in 23 EU languages.

The Horizon 2020 thematic network OK-Net Arable has recently launched a free online platform aiming to facilitate exchange of knowledge on organic farming techniques among farmers, advisors and scientists across Europe.

The platform contains tools and resources related to soil quality, nutrient management, pest and disease control, weed management, and crop-specific techniques. It is available in Bulgarian, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, and Latvian.

Find out more about Horizon 2020 thematic networks for agriculture and farming in EIP-AGRI’s dedicated brochure.

The Horizon 2020 project Inno4AgriFood has developed a free e-learning course for agri-food small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and consultants, providing training in online collaboration for innovation.

The course is intended to support SMEs in expanding their businesses by enabling them to find a broad range of suitable innovation partners, providing useful information and services related to agri-food trends, state-of-the-art technologies and practical solutions.