Rural Europe on the move English_chap7_13 | Page 8

CHAPTER 7
“In West Europe
we also see a revival
of local and regional
markets with high
quality food which also
gives a chance
to smaller producers."
EU accession:
LEarning the rulEs
of thE game
Forum Synergies usually prepares
producers. So our plan to organise
a workshop in North Macedonia on
local food was to understand how an
EU hygiene regulation could have
such an early effect on local food
its workshops and gatherings in two systems in a country just preparing for
steps. We have gathered here in the accession.
garden of Pece to find out whether we
We wanted to learn about the rules
can do something so that the loss of of the game and our chances to have
local traditional food production and our place in that new community. And
marketing gets public attention and I, as a passionate promoter of local
can be reversed in this region of North food and as rural development worker
Macedonia. We have heard from Slow from a small apple growing farm in
Food colleagues that the risk of losing this region, wanted to know how many
that valuable small farming and local of these new very limiting regulations
food systems is high in the Western were the fault of the EU and which
Balkans. We have seen thousands were just applied by the national
of small diary and slaughterhouses government to get small producers
disappear in Europe in recent out of the way.
decades.
The reason why many authorities
in EU member states closed or did
not support small food processing
facilities was often that hygiene
Teaming up
for solutions
To organise and host the
rules were not sufficiently applied workshop in 2014, Forum Synergies
or that larger enterprises were more teamed up with a strong group of
competitive. But in West Europe we partner organisations, including
also see a revival of local and regional the Slow Food Convivium of Bitola,
markets with high quality food Terra Madre of the Balkans, the
which also gives a chance to smaller Environmentally Sustainable Socio-
LOCAL WORKSHOPS
Forum Synergies co-organises workshops and Lifeshops in rural
places in partnership with local actors. We visit our co-hosts first,
before we later facilitate the workshop, so that we have taken
all needs and opportunities into consideration. In this way we build
trust and common understanding about local expectations and
our capacities to bring new ideas and knowledgeable participants
to the place where the workshop takes place.
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