Agri-Food Co-operation Scheme is now open

By joining together with others in their supply chain, they can see their ideas come to fruition with 50 days expert help from a Facilitator dedicated to the group, as well as an array of other measures to develop the skills of the group members.

Up to £30,500 of support measures are available to each group and support includes Specialist Mentoring, Training, Business Tools, Study Tours and Co-operation Support.

One group currently availing of support from the scheme is The NI Soft Fruit Growers, which combines three separate fruit growers from the Mid Ulster area into a collaborative supply chain that supports best practice techniques and joint product offering to the market. One of the participating members in the group, Peter Donnelly, focuses his business on growing high quality strawberries for both the local and national market.

Peter said: “The Agri-Food Co-operation Scheme has made a real tangible difference to both my farm and to the other growers. By coming together as a collective, we have been able to utilise the programme in a number of ways, such as in depth international and best practice training to improve the yield and quality of our produce.

“This has allowed us to keep pace with larger growers on quality and investment. We have also benefited by gaining additional accreditation for the group with funding provided for the Red Tractor scheme, which allows us to deal with much larger buying organisations, and in turn making our individual businesses much more sustainable in the long term. Without the support from the Agri-Food Co-operation Scheme and the scheme Facilitator, none of this would have been achieved and certainly not at the same speed and efficiency if we were to do it individually.”

The Agri-Food Co-operation Scheme is open to producers in the Agricultural and Horticultural sectors, as well as the Food Tourism and Artisan sector.

For Expression of Interest Forms and further information email: [email protected], telephone: 028 8778 8207 or visit www.countrysideservices.com