Taysir Al-Ghanem shares his thoughts on the learning visits to Tuscany:

The “learning route” followed by NEN’s convoy in the heart of Tuscany, brought the participants to some ancient sites of historical value, farms, rural infrastructures and agro-processing industries.

Participants were briefed on Territorial Development (TD) projects supported by European Union and the Government of Italy, and in particular on the participatory bottom-up approach. At the headquarters of the Community of Amiata association (Communita Montana Amiata Gorssetano), in the mountainous village of Arcidosso, a number of territorial development (TD) projects supported by the EU are under implementation. The Retreat participants were briefed on the planning process that governed the development of these projects with the involvement of municipal public institutions, the private sector and the Local Action Groups (LAG) of Maremma.

The association officials also underlined the importance of the seed financing provided by EU programmes, such as the Laison Entre Actions de Development de l’Economie Rurale (LEADER) programme, not only in the development of an integrated rural development strategy for the area of Monte Amiata, but also in attracting the engagement of all productive sectors. They concluded that this was stimulating to the local economy, especially at these times of much needed efforts to counterbalance the effects of the financial crisis.

NEN Director, Nadim Khouri, underlined the importance of learning from the innovative approaches to territorial development experimented in Tuscany, indicating that some IFAD activities also try to promote some similar types of activities in remote mountain areas of developing countries. The accumulated  wealth of experience, knowledge and lessons learned through these Tuscan communities were useful to share with institutions like IFAD working to promote the concept of territorial development among poor communities in low income developing countries, as part of the decentralization approach in decision making processes.

The participants enjoyed various field visits, and were encouraged by the Director of NEN to take advantage of these hands-on opportunities to acquire deeper knowledge and benefit from lessons learned. Field visit sites included: farmers’ cooperatives such as the Maremma Milk Producers Cooperative, a project that has succeeded in optimizing the milk production chain, and the Grosseto Fruit and Vegetable Cooperative, which processes and markets a wide range of products, including biological fruits and vegetables.

On the subject of Slow Food, participants visited the sites of the Valorisation of the Olive Oil programme, which is supported by the Flavour of Amiata project as a means to promote the concept of “Slow Food”, where improvement in processing techniques and marketing approaches brought added value to the region’s produce and returns to olive farms. Another group visited a Chestnut farm supported by the Protection of the Biodiversity of Chestnut project. The participants also enjoyed a Slow Food dinner at “Il Grillo”, an accredited restaurant of the Slow Food movement. The chef and owner of the restaurant, Ms Tiziana Tacchi, and Mr Alberto Baraldi, a Slow Food expert, made a presentation to the participants on Slow Food concepts and progress in outreach made by the movement.

A practical example of the success of public-private partnerships in territorial development was shown through the visit to the 800-hectar (2500 acres) Spineto farm estate, Abbazia di Spineto, which the participants had the opportunity to visit. With the support of the EU and public institutions, the estate combines agricultural development, environmental protection and biodiversity conservation activities with tourism, conferences, cultural initiatives, promotion of better nutrition, research and aid programmes.

During the Retreat, various NEN clusters presented their achievements in 2010 and plans for 2011. The presentations were followed by discussions and a collective reflection on ways of further improving the cluster’s outputs and impact on the ground.  In addition, the participants engaged in a thorough discussion on Rural Finance following a presentation by Dr Omer Zafar, CPM for Yemen and Dr Thierry Mahieux.   Another presentation by  a guest speaker from Albania, Dr Shkelzen Marku, focussed on his country’s experience in promoting TD approaches and establishment of workable solutions for promoting and valorising value chains and private-public partnerships with direct benefits to the rural producers.