Crossmarkets
Institutional cooperation to enhance cross-border selling at local farmers' markets
Support structure: b-solutions
Project duration: 01.09.2018 - 31.09.2019.
Eligible total cost: EUR 19,795.00
Support: EUR 19,795.00
Our "CrossMarkets" project, which received support in the framework of the b-solutions call for tenders, was intended to help local producers on the Croatian-Hungarian border improve their access to the neighboring country's market. The project was completed in 2020 and revealed the shortcomings and problems of the border region on the subject, as well as made suggestions to the decision-makers in order to improve the situation.
Justification of the project:
Agricultural producers and primary producers enjoy privileges if their products are traded in the production environment, i.e. within a radius of 50 km (local product). This is in line with EU policies on EU agricultural products, short food supply chains and local food systems. However, when it comes to border regions, even if these borders are internal EU borders, farmers and primary producers cannot enjoy the same privileges. In the Hungarian-Croatian border region, agricultural producers operating on both sides of the border almost exclusively offer products from one side of the border.
The goals of the project:
The Pannon ETT project aimed to strengthen institutional cooperation between municipalities operating local farmers' markets in order to jointly develop solutions to overcome the above-mentioned legal and administrative obstacles that prevent agricultural producers/primary producers from selling their products on the other side of the border. Through this type of cooperation, multiple types of support are provided to the actual stakeholders, i.e. farmers, primary producers and local distributors.
The proposed solution primarily meant the exchange of experiences and requirements between the institutions, and as a result, they jointly developed a support toolbox that provides all the necessary information about the locations and specific requirements of the farmers' market on both sides of the border in a bilingual format, which provides clear descriptions, visual processes it contained an explanation as well as a bilingual version of the necessary documentation.