Guide of good practices supporting innovation in agro sector

141 Pages·2014·5.69 MB·English

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ISBN 9788896394137
This publication was prepared under the:
SEE/D/093/1.2/X
“Transnational network for SME support in the animal breeding and horticulture sector- AGRO-START” Project
Priority: Facilitation of Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Area of intervention: Develop the enabling environment for innovative entrepreneurship
South East Europe Transnational Cooperation Programme

Edited by AGRO-START’s University of Molise Staff:
Arturo Alvino, Scientic Leader
Adolfo Fabrizio Colagiovanni, Project Coordinator
Daniele Marinelli, Project Assistant and Editor
Stefano Marino, Research Fellow
Francesco Di Lucia, Part-time Researcher

ISBN 9788896394137
Date 1st publishing: June 2014
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TABLE OF CONTENTS

AGRO-START Project ............................................................................... 1

Project Activities ........................................................................................ 2

Good Practice Guide .................................................................................. 4

Effective approaches for diagnostic and assessment services on
innovative and/or efficient production and operational processes for the
target sectors .............................................................................................. 5

Ismea – Business Plan Online .......................................................................................................... 6
Pig Carcase Grading (PCG) ............................................................................................................. 9
Diagnostic and assessment service for SME regarding the implementation of an Integrated Pest
Management (IPM) in the horticulture sector ................................................................................ 12
Implementation of Unilever’s Sustainable Agricultural Code for industrial tomato producers .... 16
Integrated management of orchards: Innovation beyond tradition ................................................ 18
Diagnostic and assessment services to Animal Husbandry Cooperatives and Fruits’ and
Vegetables’ Agricultural Cooperatives/Groups Producers ............................................................. 21
Effective approaches in financial support tools for SMEs in the old, new
Member states and candidate countries and how to provide support for
SMEs to inform about their availability and access them ....................... 24

IPARD online information toolkit .................................................................................................. 25
Business support to farmers for access to finance ......................................................................... 28
TrovaAgevolazioni.it: the online tool to finance your investments ............................................... 32
Financial instruments and services in smaller towns and rural areas ............................................ 36
Agevolazioni alle Imprese (SMEs facilitation.it) .......................................................................... 40
Access to Finance in Agro Business .............................................................................................. 44
Effective approaches for technology and innovation transfer to SMEs .. 47

Software Suite for the management of horticultural crops ............................................................ 48
Knowledge2Innovation Toolkit ..................................................................................................... 52
Integrated monitoring and control of foodborne viruses in a vegetable production enterprise ..... 55
www.fertirrigazione.it .................................................................................................................... 59
Use of blended type training courses (online and on the field) for young farmers (SMEs) in
horticultural and the animal breeding sector .................................................................................. 61
Agrohomeopathy – novel old approach in horticulture and animal breeding ................................ 65
Supporting technology and innovation transfer on national and international level ..................... 69
Effective approaches for promoting and facilitating entrepreneurship in
the target sectors ...................................................................................... 73

Bulgarian Business Angels Network supports entrepreneurship in the horticultural and animal
breeding sector ............................................................................................................................... 74
iFarm: a farm management application for mobile devices ........................................................... 78
Entrepreneurial Animation ............................................................................................................. 82
University of Ruse – Ecobiz Info Centres and Ecobiz Fair ........................................................... 85
Center for Agricultural Entrepreneurship at the American Farm School - Perrotis College ......... 89
LugoNextLab new opportunity to develop your projects and enter a business ............................. 93
Effective support approaches to assess on entering new markets,
meeting European quality standard, promotion of products and
facilitate the internationalization of SMEs ............................................. 96

Quality Assurance for Small Food Producers (GLK) in the Framework of the Project “Food
Safety for South East Europe 2012 – 2013” .................................................................................. 97
Strategic Export Concept ............................................................................................................. 101
Exportgate.gr ................................................................................................................................ 106
Matching 2.0 – The value of a meeting........................................................................................ 110
National Export Portal Bulgaria (NEPBG) .................................................................................. 114
Regional/National animal identification and traceability (cattle, sheep, lamb, goats) in Albania –
ICT Platform ................................................................................................................................ 118
Other Good Practice Examples ............................................................. 122
LIST OF ABBREVIATION
AGROSTAR The National Federation of Trade Unions in Agriculture, Food, Tobacco,
Domains and Related Services AGROSTAR, Romania
BEF Bulgaria Economic Forum, Bulgaria
BSC SME Business Support Centre for Small and Medium Enterprises – Ruse, Bulgaria
CBPD Centre for Business and Parliamentary Dialog, Albania
CERTH / IRETETH Centre for Research and Technology - Hellas (CERTH)
Institute for Research and Technology - Thessaly (IRETETH), Greece
CONFAGRICOLTURA Regional Federation of Farmers Puglia, Italy
PUGLIA
ERFC European Regional Framework Co-operation, Greece
EC European Commission
EU European Union
FFRM Federation of the farmers in the Republic of Macedonia, Fyrom
FYROM Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia
ICT Information and Communications Technology
KGZS Chamber of Agriculture and Forestry of Slovenia, Slovenia
R&D Research and Development
SEE South East Europe
SME Small and Medium Enterprises
SE RDA / ADR SE The Regional Development Agency of the South - East Development
Region, Romania
UNIMOL University of Molise, Italy
European Partners

AGROSTAR Federation in Partnership with:

The Regional Development Agency Centre for Research and Technology Business Support Centre for Small
of the South-East Development – Hellas (CERTH)) and Medium Enterprises – Ruse
Region Institute for Research and BSC SME
SE RDA / ADR SE Technology – Thessaly (IRETETH) Bulgaria
Romania CERTH / IRETETH
Greece

Bulgaria Economic Forum Chamber of Agriculture and Regional Federation Of Farmers
BEF Forestry of Slovenia Puglia
Bulgaria KGZS CONFAGRICOLTURA PUGLIA
Slovenia Italy

E.R.F.C. (European Regional University of Molise Molise Region
Framework Co-operation) UNIMOL MOLISE REGION
ERFC Italy Italy
Greece

Centre for Business and Federation of the farmers in the
Parliamentary Dialog Republic of Macedonia
CBPD FFRM
Albania Former Yugoslav Republic of
Macedonia
International Staff

AGROSTAR Aurelia Rosu, Project Manager
Ana Rotaru, Project Manager Assistant

Adrian Rosu, Technical Expert Agricultural Sector
Sorin Grigorescu, Technical Expert Breeding Sector
Adriana Vaida, Project Manager
SE RDA / ADR SE
Diana Alexandru, Technical Officer
Madalina Toma, Technical Officer
Cristina Neagu Patulea, Technical Officer
Monica Daniela Cristina, Technical Officer
Claudia Cioroiu, Financial Officer
CERTH / IRETETH Constantinos Kittas, Project Coordinator
Thomas Bartzanas, Researcher, Technical Expert
Stavroula Divane, Project Management and Dissemination
ERFC Nikolas Petropoulos, Project Coordinator
Katerina Sotiropoulou, Financial Manager
George Soulos, Project Manager
BSC SME Iliana Draganova, Project Coordinator and Administrative Officer
Emil Stanev, Technical Manager
Sashka Tsoneva, Project Financial Officer
BEF George Tabakov, Project Manager
Valeriya Paskaleva, Technical Manager
Christina Zlatanova, Financial Manager
Marina Hristeva, Expert Event Organization
Syuzan Dzhevadilova, Technical assistant
KGZS Aleš Tolar, Project Manager
Janko Rode, Project Coordinator
Jožica Vodopivec Rozman, Project Assistant
Marjan Papež, Public Relations and Dissemination
CONFAGRICOLTURA PUGLIA Carlo Zambelli, Director
Francesca Tiziana Dipasquale, Project Coordinator
Fabio Lazzari, Technical Expert
UNIMOL Arturo Alvino, Scientic Leader
Adolfo Fabrizio Colagiovanni, Project Coordinator
Daniele Marinelli, Project Assistant
Stefano Marino, Research Fellow
Francesco Di Lucia, Part-time Researcher
MOLISE REGION Mauro Calise, Project Coordinator
Paolo Stanziale, Communication Manager
Dessislava Tzvetkova, Translator
CBPD Eugenia Gjuraj, Project Coordinator
Rakela Kapo, Project Assistant & Financial Officer
Vladimir Saliasi, Technical Expert
Manuela Canaj, Technical Expert
FFRM Biljana Petrovska-Mitrevska, Project Coordinator and PR officer
Trajanka Apostolova, Financial Manager
The Project

AGRO-START Project

The South East Europe (SEE) economic area is a SMEs-based economy in which the sectors of horticulture and animal
breeding play a vital role regarding economic growth and employment opportunities. SMEs face severe common
problems in sustainably keeping up their competitiveness in their national and on the European market, such as: lack of
effective support services that offer practical help and expert knowledge to entrepreneurs and experienced enterprises to
foster innovative approaches; not well exploited advantages that new technologies offer; difficulties in entering on new
markets; poorly developed marketing networks; low level of cooperation between undertakings and low level of
internationalization.
The project’s overall objective is to increase the SMEs competitiveness and promote and facilitate the innovative
entrepreneurship by giving an answer to the need of a specific support Service for SMEs in the horticulture and animal
breeding sector that adapts an integrated transnational approach.
Through AGRO-START Project the SEE Service Protocol that is addressed to business support organizations will be
developed in order to improve the provision of SME support and innovation services and assist SMEs to better exploit
the possibilities for SMEs in the South East economic area.
SEE Support Service Protocol will be based on a common and integrated approach that provides business support
service organizations with guidelines on how to best assess SMEs in order to enable them to tackle the common
challenges that they are facing and on how to best guide SMEs so that these can fully exploit the opportunities that inheres
the SEE area for them..
SEE Protocol will also give guidelines on how to best facilitate and promote an innovative entrepreneurship environment
for SMEs in the horticulture and animal breeding sector.
The specific objectives of the project are therefore the following:
1. Implement and pilot the SEE Support Service Protocol in the participating partners’ entities;
2. Pilot the support tools that will help to improve the business support services provided through the SEE
Support Service Protocol and increase the competitiveness of SMEs in the horticulture and animal breeding
sector through the development of a transnational database for SME support and service providers that will
help to assess on comparative advantages and provide information for service providers on the market;
3. Provide better assistance to SMEs in order to increase their internationalization (by assisting them in being
represented on the internet, web constructor, and organization of a SEE Virtual Fair);
4. Raise awareness on the need for innovation and provide better innovation diagnostic and assessment services
by piloting a diagnostic and assessment tool;
5. Provide better assistance for entrepreneurs and facilitate the environment for innovative entrepreneurship by
developing the SEE Kit for entrepreneurs and implementing an e-learning course for entrepreneurs;
6. Transfer the SEE Support Service Protocol and the support tools and capacitate employees of business support
service organizations to implement it.

The core result of the project will be an increased quality and effectiveness of business support services to SMEs;
increased knowledge of at least 1000 business support services that the Protocol has been distributed to and assistance
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for implementing it has been provided to. The support tools will produce the following results: increased
internationalization of SMEs in the animal breeding and horticulture sector, transnational database will help to assess on
comparative advantages; increased know-how of at least 60 employees of business support services through the specially
developed e-learning course, assured realistic approach of the Protocol by obtaining valorous considerations on the first
approaches of the SEE Support Service Protocol obtained and enriched by the target groups, increased SME’s awareness
of innovation and opportunity for the improvement of their competitiveness.

Project Activities

AGRO-START Project is structured in 7 Work Packages (WP), each of them having two or three main activities, as
follows:
1. Transnational project and financial management: this is a transversal activity to the other
Work Packages that will assure a well-structured coordination, project and financial management during the
whole project cycle;

2. Communication activities: this is a transversal activity with the main objective to disseminate project
results to the target groups and to assure a high visibility of project results and activities throughout the whole
project cycle;

3. Detection of innovative and successful approaches for elaboration and
implementation of the SEE Support Service Protocol: this is the core component of the
AGRO-START Project. There will be organized 5 thematic workshops in Romania, Greece, Italy, Albania and
Bulgaria, for which the project partners will contact target groups in order to identify good practice examples in
their countries that best tackle the challenges of SMEs and provide successful and/or innovative approaches to
best exploit the opportunities. This will contribute to the development of a Good Practice Guide and, based on
these approaches, it will be developed the SEE Support Service Protocol that will guide business support entities
on how to best provide support services to SMEs in the animal breeding and horticulture sector in order to
improve their competitiveness and facilitate an innovative environment for entrepreneurship. In order to assure
the transfer of projects results, the partnership will provide assistance via e-mail to entities that want to
implement the SEE Support Service Protocol. Good Practice Guide and the Protocol will be available both in
English and in partners’ languages and will be posted on the project’s website and the hard copies will be
disseminated among target groups and stakeholders;

4. Structural support measures to improve SME support services in the animal
breeding and horticulture sector: the successful implementation of the SEE Support Service
Protocol is reinforced by the adequate support tools. Through AGRO-START Project was elaborated a
Transnational database on service suppliers and providers that include data on specialized business support
service and product suppliers from the complete supply and value chain of the targeted SMEs: seed providers,
tool providers, etc. The data is included from all participating countries and therefore enables business support
services to better assess entrepreneurs on starting up their business and access other markets in the participating
countries, take advantage of comparative advantages and price differences and help the SMEs to widen their
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service/product provider base or internationalize themselves. The database is available on the project’s website
and is therefore accessible to all interested SMEs and business support services. Within this work package a
transnational conference for SME business support services was organized in Bulgaria. The aim of the
conference was to present the transnational database on service and product providers, motivate the participants
to join and enrich the database and promote active networking in order for the project to benefit from possible
synergies;

5. Increasing SME’s awareness of innovation and technology in order to
approach better roads to market opportunities: is addressed to the SME stakeholders in order
to test a diagnostic approach and transfer know-how and raise awareness of innovation. Thus, it will be carried
out the following activities:
 Diagnostic and assessment of SMEs in the horticulture and animal breeding sector, which is meant
to test one of the approaches integrated into the SEE Support Service Protocol;
 Elaboration and organization of an e-learning course for entrepreneurs: Based on the commonly
detected training needs during the diagnostic, it will be developed an e-learning course that will
provide entrepreneurs with the necessary knowledge in order for them to undertake an innovative
and successful entrepreneur’s initiative;

6. Elaboration of support tools for entrepreneurs and SMEs in the horticulture
and animal breeding sector: it will provide additional support tools for SMEs to increase their
internationalization and facilitate entrepreneurship, as follow:
 SEE Kit for entrepreneurs: is a tool meant to support entrepreneurship that will help SMEs to
fully take into accounted the conditions and requirements of the AGRO-START partner countries
for entrepreneurship in the targeted sectors;
 Web Builder: The entrepreneurs from the horticulture and animal breeding sector will have the
possibility to create their own website in order to increase their visibility on the market;
 SEE Virtual Faire: is a tool meant to promote internationalization of entrepreneurial initiatives.
Through SEE Virtual Fair 12 SMEs from the participating SEE regions from the horticulture and
animal breeding sector can promote their products in virtual stands. The customer can pass
through the virtual pavilion and visit the different SMEs. The virtual fair will provide information
in an innovative manner that will invite the costumer to visit the SMEs website for further
information;

7. Training measures for the employees of business support services for the
effective implementation of the SEE Support Service Protocol: it will transfer the
know-how and capacitate the employees of business support services for the implementation of the final
version of the SEE Support Service Protocol and introduce them to the SEE support tools developed by
AGRO-START Project. In this respect an e-learning course will be organized in each participating country. The
design of the e-learning course will be elaborated based on the training needs diagnostic that will be carrying out
by all partners at the level of support services organizations.

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