Study & Training Tour to Slovakia in September 2023

International training 5 – 9 June 2023 – Slovak Republic

The participants from the Kosovo Food and Veterinary Agency (KFVA) and Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Rural Development (MAFRD) particicipated in a  5  days training in Slovakia under the activity A.2.

This training consisted of 2 parts – training on the marketing standards and training on the function of the producer organizations.  The group consisted of  5 participants (+ interpretation 1 person) who  attended the international training course for 3 days  and 2 days of the additional training on producer organizations and the new EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) was  provided to the group.

Part 1 – Marketing standards

The participation of the representatives of the MAFRD and KFVA on the international training „Harmonization of the fruit and vegetables quality assessment“ was the perfect opportunity for  public sector representatives to take part on the special training concerning marketing standards and at the same time establish contacts with representatives of international organizations and control bodies from different countries. This will serve participants for better cooperation of Kosovo with other countries, above all with EU member states.

The International Training Course (ITC)  took place from 6  to 8 June 2023.

The agenda of the ITC 2023 was focused on interpretation of the marketing standards for apples, strawberries, tomatoes, table grapes and papaya presented by international experts.

During the ITC, presentations were held by international experts on world and EU market with apples and papaya, tomatoes types and varieties, and provided as well as short overview of the  international organisations recent work.

The participants of the ITC were tested on knowledge obtained during the training and the certificates of the attendance  were distributed by the end of the ITC.

Part 2- training on new EU CAP and strategic plans and function of the producer organizations

During the 3 days we visited following  the producers:

  • Bonum PO – fruit producers, cherries and strawberries, Alzbetin Dvor
  • Walnuts producer – Visnovsky comp. Nove Zamky
  • SK Fruit PO member – Dvory nad Žitavou

The meetings with PO representatives gave the possibility to the training participants to obtain the relevant information on problems faced in the  first years of the POs functioning, setting the operational program and its implementation, transition to the CAP strategic plan implementation.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development of the Slovak Republic provided the participants with  the information about  new EU CAP and strategic plan, main differences compared to the previous CAP system and ways of the strategic plan implementation.