The 14th European Rural Development Conference has been organised by the Hungarian Research Institute of Agricultural Economics (AKI) and the Polish Institute of Agricultural and Food Economics (IERIGZ). 40 international presentations focused on knowledge sharing and innovation in rural regions. Among them were new theoretical approaches and findings as well as practical experiences and organisational and technical implementations. For example a Swedish contribution assessed the role of internal and external knowledge on farm productivity, a Dutch presentation dealt with the regional knowledge and innovation systems, an FAO representative talked about Agricultural Innovation Systems, a UK contribution was about action learning to support organisational change in rural businesses, a Hungarian presentation had the title “understanding the initiators of knowledge sharing and social innovation in rural areas” and a Polish contribution informed about experiences of social farming. The SIMRA poster and a short presentation of the SIMRA work program sparked the interest of about 70 participants. During the conference also other international projects like AgriSpin (about learning from sharing), Valerie (valorising European research for innovation in agriculture and forestry) and a study on the role of agroforestry innovation networks have been introduced. More details about the conference including the book of abstracts can be found on ERDN. Next year’s ERDN conference will be held in Austria.
Author: Klaus Wagner (Austrian Federal Institute of Agricultural Economics)