Finland NRN seminar "Locally produced food; what are we exactly talking about?"

The Finnish National Rural Network, in collaboration with LAG Riverside Patner's Association and LAG LounaPlussa is organising a three day event to describe, discuss and get acquainted with local produced food issues. What is locally produced food? What kind of development is taking place in different Rural Development Programmes? How does the locally produced food find its way to the customers?

Locally produced food; what are we exactly talking about? -seminar will be held on July 4-6, 2012 in Loimaa area, South-West Finland, near Turku.

The seminar consists of three parts: seminar day, OKRA-fair day and study trip is South-West Finland. Please find attached the draft program of the seminar.

The target group of the seminar are:
- LAGs and NRNs
- Governmental institutions
- Local produced food experts and developers
- Entrepreneurs and firms from the food sector
- Associations and NGOs
- Researchers and academics

With this email we also open call for good practices of locally produced food issues development in different RDPs. Especially we are interested in the development work, which deals with how the locally produced food find its way to the customers. The whole afternoon of our seminar day is reserved for these good practices. If you want to present a good example in our seminar, please contact the organizers.

The seminar in linked to OKRA-agricultural fair, which is kept in the area at the same time. OKRA is one of the largest agricultural fairs in Finland. It gathers hundreds of exhibitors and thousands of visitors to a small country village Oripää in South-Western Finland on the 4th to 7th of July 2012. About 70 000 visitors are expected to OKRA.
The fair is held every second year and this time it is the 17th in its history. OKRA is organized by the charity organization Oripää Lions Club with the help of hundreds local volunteers. http://www.okramaatalous.fi/.

Prices:
Seminar package: seminar day and OKRA-fair day, lunches and dinners (not accommodation): 90 €
Seminar day, meals included: 50 €
Study trip: transportation, program and lunch: 60 €

Language:
The seminar language is English. Translation will not be provided.

Registration:
Please, register on our website before 15th of May
link to registration form

Because the seminar is kept in rural area, there aren't many accommodation places. We recommend to make registration and booking of accommodation as soon as possible. Information about accommodation can be found in the attached programme.


For further information:
Please contact:
Taina Simola
LAG Riverside Partner's Association
taina.simola@jokivarsi.org, +358 44 0251 521

Juha-Matti Markkola
Rural Network Unit of Finland
juha-matti.markkola@maaseutu.fi, +358 40 5599 412