A.1.1. ESF-HEFOP project
Environment protecting technologies in the food industry:
Processing, technical diagnostics, information-technology
or the life-long learning and the market-needs –
real knowledge in the food sector

1. What kind of support was the tender completed? (EU support + national support)

The program was realized under the common financing of Hungary and EU.

EU support: European Social Fund

National support: HEFOP: Operative Human Resources

Project number: HEFOP-3.3.1-P.-2004-06-0086/1.0

2. Title of the tender, its duration, rate of support

Title: Environment protecting technologies in the food industry: Processing, technical diagnostics, information-technology or the life-long learning and the market-needs – real knowledge in the food sector.

Rate of support: The budget of the project: 183.500.000 Ft, which coveres the work of the 10 consortium-partners.

Duration: The real work started on 01.08.2007 and will end on 31.06.2008.

3. Summary

The short trainings were focusing on the acquirement of certain task materials in different important subjects. The subjects were developed together with all the consortium partners, considering the needs of Hungarian food industry companies. The professional work is performed by technical teams formed by the representatives of different professional areas. In this programme our consortium is the greatest, involving the following participants: University of Szeged Department of Engineering, University of Debrecen Centre of Agro-sciences, Chamber of Trade and Commerce of Csongrád County, Milk Product Board, Poultry Product Board, Animal and Meat-Product Board, Association of Sweets Producers, Chamber of Agriculture of Hajdú-Bihar County, Bács Agro-Haus Public Benefit Company, and the Scientific Union of the Machine Industry.

Detailed presentation of the project subject

The development of technology in the recent years was extremely accelerated all over the word. New materials, technological and information-technology results appeared which not always were known by the representatives of middle management, who are on the other hand talented professionals.

Same changes were introduced in the EU legal, judicial harmonization, food safety and environment protecting processing, too.

The new up-to-date knowledge transfer in the food industry (especially short vocational trainings) creates possibilities for the elder generation to synchronize and update their knowledge with the young generation, who possess current theoretical knowledge, but miss the practical experiences.

The main part of the training is informatics, because the traceability of the products “from the farm to fork” cannot be performed without computer knowledge. While preparing the training materials, some pretences of elder generation are also taking in consideration.

The start of this programme is justified by the fact that several young and middle age professionals living in these regions, have a different degree than agriculture, but during the changing of the regime they became (or were forced to change in) entrepreneurs. They have a need to acquire up-to-date knowledge, but because of competition reasons, they cannot participate on long duration courses. The professionals of this section are aware that they can survive on the EU market only if they manufacture their products with the latest technology and the minimal load and protection of the environment, with conscious work and by the changing of the production systems.

4. Aims

The main aim of the project

The aim of this project is to assure the principle of equality in chances for the professionals with higher degrees (target group) being got in disadvantageous position; to ameliorate their value on the manpower market by the new vocational training programmes developed by universities, professional organizations and chambers.

The start of this programme is justified by the fact that several young and middle age professionals living in these regions, have a different degree than agriculture, but during the changing of the regime they became (or were forced to change in) entrepreneurs. They have a need to acquire up-to-date knowledge, but because of competition reasons, they cannot participate on long duration courses. The professionals of this section are aware that they can survive on the EU market only if they manufacture their products with the latest technology and the minimal load and protection of the environment, with conscious work and by the changing of the production systems.

Due to the project support our trainings are free of charge. The audience was paid with daily allowances, and supplied with accommodation and transportation contribution. The participants received the printed and/or the electronic version of the training materials.

The target audiences of the project were employee with university degree, so the financial support could be given only to this target group; but not only workers with higher scholar degrees could attend our courses.

The general and particular aims of the project

General objectives

• • Improvement of the disadvantageous situation, of the manpower market value for the university degree employee; by the collaboration of universities, professional organizations and chambers, by the means of newly developed vocational training programmes.
• • Formation of consortiums to improve the cooperation among universities of agronomic profile and rural, local and regional non-profit organizations.
• • Enlargement of the vocational training programmes of national and especially the Hungarian Southern-Plain regions, the improvement with economic expectations, development strategies; extension of the programme on national and international level.
• • Improvement of the role of university qualifications, strengthening the environment-protecting thinking and mentality, to carry on and validate the economical and EU expectations and methods.
• • Creation of an intellectual, practical and empirical capital, based on the consortium partners’ experiments and knowledge, using their common information and experiences, which can create a significant positive changing in the national man-powers’ bases.

Particular objectives

• • Development of a competence-based modular training programme using an internationally recognized method (DACUM); integrating the EU compatibility and the special needs of the national food producers, processors.
• • Development of a training material needed by the project; dissemination of the project results, and extension on a national and international level.
• • The programme accreditation will give possibility to establish a long term financing system.

• To sustain the long-term accredited status of the programme in the partner agro-universities and high-schools, with the further intellectual help and cooperation of the consortium partners.

• • To create the training possibility for professionals, to increase their man-power or employee-value, to improve their competence level and their chance to find a job, to enhance the usage of the research and scientific results in the economic life.

5. Participants

• University of Szeged, Department of Engineering
• University of Debrecen Centre of Agro-sciences
• Chamber of Trade and Commerce of Csongrád County
• Milk Product Board
• Poultry Product Board
• Animal and Meat-Product Board
• Association of Sweets Producers
• Chamber of Agriculture of Hajdú-Bihar County
• Bács Agro-Haus Public Benefit Company
• Scientific Union of the Machine Industry

The project organization and its action

Each consortium partner delegates its representative – the so called “project leader” of each institution – to the project Leader Commission. The main duties, the decision competence, the meetings order and regularity of Leader Commission are fixed in the Action Regulation of the Commission.

The harmonization of the operational work is the duty of the project coordinator (project manager):

• to assure the flow of information, to handle the feedbacks,
• to supervise and document the performance of project activities connected with quality assurance,
• to prepare the information for the meetings of the Leading Commission,
• the coordination of the performance of Commission’s decisions, the follow up of the decisions on the level of the professional teams.

With the realizations and the progress of the project packages, the composition and number of project teams are changing. They are delegated by the member organizations of the consortium. Their work represents a real cooperation among the professional organizations. They have a main role in the preparation of competence-based modular training systems, the subject and content of the modules, the definition of the modules’ succession, the preparation and expertise of the training printed materials and learning guides, in the development of the measuring system of the competence-learning and knowledge.

The members of the project management

• Bajúszné dr. Kabók Katalin (college, academy) associate professor
• Bara Tamásné Dr. (college, academy) associate professor
• Dr. Eszes Ferenc (college, academy) associate professor
• Prof. Dr. Fenyvessy József (university) associate professor
• Forgács Endre főiskolai (college, academy) assistant professor
• Dr. habil. Véha Antal project leader
• Dr. Gyimes Ernő project manager
• Hodúr Cecília Dr. (college, academy) associate professor,
• Horváthné Dr. Almássy Katalin (college, academy) associate professor
• Jankóné Dr. Forgács Judit (college, academy) associate professor
• László Zsuzsanna Dr. (college, academy) associate professor
• Nagy Elemérné Dr. (college, academy) associate professor
• Gálné Szabados Ibolya account manager
• Supply management

The services linked to the project and assured for the target groups and all the supply connected to the trainings have been performed in conformity with the regulation of the Public Procurement Law

6. Target group

Persons with high-education, with university or college degree

Personal data of the applicants

Exact data are not yet available, because the statistical evaluation can be done only after fulfilling the last training course. What we can see in advance: the number of applicants was over 600 persons. Just to form an idea: in the project preparation we planned a number of 160 persons. This success of the project is due to the favourable economic possibility (courses free of charge), and also the very well chosen topics of the training courses. The majority of the applicants were represented by women, which is a very joyful situation. They were also in majority among the teachers of the trainings. A great number of the applicants were unemployed, but the majority of the participants belonged to a regular staff of several organizations. Many organizations assured the training possibility to their employee. But unfortunately we had negative examples too, when the employee’s superior manager did not approve the training opportunity for the workers, even if they knew that the vocational training is free of charge.

7. Experience

We plan to publish the results of the project in the near future. The web-page of the project will be continuously developed; we will continue the information and communication and the testing of the e-learning systems; moreover with the usage of the above mentioned facts we wish to take part in further tenders and projects, too.

8. Type of dissemination, any other application of the results

As a finish of this programme, by the end of June, on several places of the country, conference series will be held as so called “road show” sessions. During the conferences, beside the results of the project, our future idea and conception will be also presented.

We plan to publish the results of the project in the near future. The home-page of the project will be further developed, this will be used for communication, and the e-learning system will be tested, too. By the help of this system we are willing to participate in future project programmes.

9. Evaluation of the results achieved by the project

Observing the objective data and results, the training can be qualified as being very successful. Regarding the planned number of 160 participants, the project over fulfilled its scope. Several participants have taken part on more than two or three courses extended in this way their knowledge. This fact represents the quality of the work performed during the project.

You can read below the comment of an enthusiastic training participant:

“… it was an honorific pleasure to take part on the courses organized by You, I have got lots of interesting and useful knowledge during these training courses. I also have thanked to the teachers at (almost) each occasion for the valuable information we have received. Now I do it again. I thank for the teachers and professors for their time, work and awareness, which helped me to develop my professional knowledge. Certainly, I am ready to participate again in the future on such, high level professional trainings.”

A.1.2. eContentplus-ePSIplus-description
ePSIPlus – summary of proposal for a PSI Thematic Network under eContentplus

1. Rationale

The European Directive on PSI re-use, adopted by the European Council and Parliament in November 2003 following consultations with Member States, provides a major opportunity for business to develop added value products and services based on PSI. The PSI Directive is a legal instrument (at the macro economic level) designed to stimulate the internal market by introducing a general framework for the conditions governing the re-use of public sector documents.

The Directive is the result of a continuous debate over the past 20 years which has involved various types of business sector (major information sectors with a visible stake to date include legal, business, companies, geospatial, environmental and meteorological, together with national registries of many different kinds).It seeks to deliver a minimum level of harmonisation to facilitate cross-border use, transparency of conditions, avoidance of the abuse of market power, non-discrimination, clear procedures and easy access to asset lists and licenses to re-use PSI.

Although some countries in Europe have made strides in the proposed direction, others have not. Specific issues central to the Directive which continue to require attention include, for instance:

· piecemeal government policies on PSI, constrained by diverging departmental policy objectives and an absence of ‘joined-up thinking’.

· the continued existence of many exclusive deals and pre-existing contracts between the public and private sectors and lack of clear distinction between the public and commercial operations of public sector bodies;

· public sector commercialisation and wider imperatives to generate income (and beyond this the existence of Trading Funds such as those in the UK with an apparent monopoly on the exploitation of government copyright in some key sectors);

· lack of transparent pricing policies and calculation mechanisms;

· non-specification of reply times and redress mechanisms.

On the other hand, an increasing body of instances of good practice continues to emerge, suitable for adoption and adaptation across the Member States, including:

· much PSI being made available free of charge or on a ‘marginal costs’ basis;

· more catalogues of information becoming available online (and deploying effective discovery technologies), although access to the information held by local government remains a specific difficulty;

· models for on-line ‘click-use’ licensing systems

The Directive promotes a measure of consistency across Europe, the creation of a minimum of legal security and to stimulate investment. Member states were allowed until 1 July 2005 to transpose the Directive into national law. There will be a review of its impact in 2008. An important issue for the review is whether, following the 2008 review, the scope of the Directive should be extended to cover sectors currently excluded from its provisions, such as culture, education, scientific research and broadcasting archives.

At the time of writing this proposal, 11 member states had notified transposition. The evidence so far suggests that member states are adopting a variety of regulatory mechanisms to achieve transposition including the enactment of new laws and modification of existing legislation in areas such as Freedom of Information (predominantly), access to public information, Data Protection and secondary legislation involving the use of measures such as ‘statutory instruments’ to alter existing regulations.

2. Building on ePSINet

The ePSINet Accompanying Measure, funded under the e-Content programme (together with, ePSINet-CEE its extension to new Member States) concluded its work with a state-of-the-art update on commercial exploitation of PSI, based on the proceedings of the ePSINet Policy conference Adding Value: commercial exploitation of Public Sector Information in Europe - progress check and future agenda held in Athens, Greece on 14 January 2005. This provided a twelve point synopsis of key actions http://www.epsigate.org/cgi-bin/epsi_page.cgi?page=thing_5_1096_1057 which need to be undertaken in order to strengthen the impact of and build upon the framework created by the Directive on PSI re-use:

The vital need to continue intensive and co-ordinated work at European level to address these issues has attained a large measure of support among the public and private sector stakeholder communities involved. The proposed activities of the PSI Thematic Network are designed to provide a high-value contribution to this end.

3. Key issues

In order to establish a manageable means of addressing these issues, the Thematic Network has consolidated these issues into five key areas for action,

Issue	Target audience	Action needed
Legal and regulatory progress and impact (including implementation of the Directive)	National and European PSI policy makers PSI regulators/ arbitrators Public and private sector stakeholders	Monitoring and analysis of transposition, compliance, disputes Sharing experience Review
Public sector organisation and culture change (including compliance with the Directive)	Central and local government organisations	Monitor and review Exchange experience and cross fertilize between countries on good and bad practice. Assess and support appropriate models for PPP (including relationship between egovernment and PSI re-use)
Encouraging PSI re-use business	Information and content industries Representative associations	Raise awareness of existing cross-border and Pan-European product business models. Stimulate training and support facilities for businesses. Build political support for re-use industries across PSI sectors (e.g. through an Industry Action Group)
The financial impact of the Directive: pricing and charging (including impact on public sector costs and budget)	Financial policy makers and managers in central and local government	Monitor changes in pricing and charging policies. Exchange experience between member states on reducing barriers to low charges.
Information management, standards and data quality	Standards and data framework and interoperability agencies Industry associations Public sector information managers PSI re-use businesses	Consensus building on data quality issues. Support for greater public-private standards interoperability Sharing good practice and building interoperability for discovery and access to PSI

4. Activities

The work of ePSINet has identified that, in a still comparatively little considered area of interest such as PSI re-use, workshop style meetings among stakeholders are the most effective method for achieving these goals The Thematic Network will therefore base its approach on organising, with national and industrial participation, a wide-reaching set of structured meetings, carefully prepared to achieve incremental benefit and build iteratively, supported by careful analysis and preparation. These will include:

15 Thematic cross-border workshops (3 iterative meetings for each of the 5 thematic areas above)

35 National and federal level meetings (at least one per country)

A major final conference in Month 27

Desk research, analysis and preparatory activity with stakeholders will be conducted before each meeting in order to develop the topics and inform the agenda for discussion, building continuously on the knowledge base created by and available to the consortium. Each of the five thematic area will produce a summative report on the outcomes of its work, highlighting emerging good practice and remaining barriers designed to inform the process of review of the Directive in 2008 and to help define further activity needed.

This thematic work will be fed into the project’s extensive ‘horizontal’ activities on a rolling basis so that national meetings and website content are informed by thematic activities and horizontal activities in turn feed back into the preparation of subsequent thematic activities.

The programme of meetings will be underpinned by a website which provides ongoing access to the results of these meetings and the current ‘state of play’ deploying syndication techniques such as RSS Newsfeed in the process and encouraging ‘reflector’ sites in national languages.

A.1.3. SAPARD ARDOP Project

1. Introduction

The integration of Hungary into EU was helped by different founds focusing to the development, between 2002 and 2004 this source was the SAPARD[1] program, then after our accession in 2004 the financial frame was the ARDOP (Agricultural and Rural Development Operational Program). In both program the development of food sector was an independent measure which over the technological renewal of processing capacities promoted through the quality measures the improvement of food safety as well.

2. The national preliminaries of program

The programs of course was not without preliminaries, the introduction of the European quality measures in the food sector since middle of 90’s was assisted by significant measures and actions of Hungarian government and other authorities.

The Hungarian food sector made significant efforts for improvement of quality also before 1990 which is based on the export- oriented character of Hungarian agriculture. There is well- known that from the new members of EU, Hungary is unique country which remains its net- exporter position in the market of EU, although there was significant declining in its production. The defence of this position was possible only due to permanent existence of such quality policy behind the Hungarian production which was significantly in harmony with the internal demands of the single market of EU.

The state before 1990 had determinant role and extended institute system related to the quality which involved the activities of State Authorities on the soil analysis and phyto-sanitary, on the veterinary and hygiene control belong Ministry of Agriculture and Food respectively the human public health service belong the Ministry of Health. This broad system basically stressed the state control with parallel activities and these controls are belong different Authorities of different ministries. The main responsibility was on the Ministry of Agriculture and Food, but the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Industry and Trade, and the Ministry of Environment and Regional Development also had own role.

Hungary after the beginning of accession negotiation elaborated the quality policy of sector in 1997 which was a significant step in our preparation. The quality policy edited by the Ministry included the following main elements:

1. State tasks during the implementation of the quality policy

1.1.Legislation of quality

1.2.Supervision of authorities

1.3.Quality research and training belongs state institutions

1.4.Coherence with other policies

2. Tasks of the quality policy demanding participation of state

2.1.Participation in the national standards and in the other regulation as well

2.2.Participation in the development and implementation of the product certification and quality assurance systems

2.3.Participation in the quality info- system

3. Tasks of the quality policy demanding state support

3.1.Knowledge transfer related to quality, promotion of change in the way of thinking

3.2.Introduction of quality systems and voluntary quality assurance systems in the sector

The principles of the implementation of the tasks related to quality policy included amongst other the following items:

· During the allocation of the sources the state tasks has priorities, the catalytic activity of the state will be preferred depending to the amount of sources;

· Advantage has to provide to the tasks which cause broader effects. The improvement of infrastructure and the knowledge transfer has higher priority compared to the programs providing benefits to individuals;

· The small- and medium sized entrepreneurs due its lower capital supply and less modern technology has to prefer for improvement of their competitiveness and dynamic.

The preparation of the document of quality policy was an important tool both in the negotiation with EU and in the action plan of accession as well. The most significant elements of the preparation were:

· legal harmonisation

· transformation of the control of state authorities

· improvement of the products’ certification and quality assurance systems

therefore the presentation will introduce the steps of the Hungarian preparation to the accession and will summarise its experiences by the analysis of these elements.

The EU monitoring report about preparedness of Hungary in November 2003 drafted that the structural and hygienic situation of these plants as a significant insufficiency. The report also shown that the national-wide state control of authority wasn’t sufficient in 2002-2003, because wasn’t able to speed up the implementation of companies’ plan for the compliance with the EU requirement. Hungary after the declaration of the quality policy in 1997 as a tool of this policy provided significant subsidy to the introduction of quality systems (HACCP, TQM). The subsidy from the national budget which was 50 % to the expenses of the introduction started in 1998 to the food industry. The yearly subsidies of development on quality are shown by Figure 1.

The subsidy helped the speed up of the introduction of HACCP system especially in 1999 and 2000, but in 2001- 2002 the available sources declined besides increasing applicants. Behind the limitation of allocation in the national budget was concealed the expectation of the government the more rapid start of SAPARD program and they hope also co-financing of EU in the faster preparation. The failures of the SAPARD preparation therefore also influenced the more rapid joining up of this sector. At the same time the successive decreasing of the sources is motivated due to decreasing of potential applicant parallel with the increasing competition because the unprepared players successively will give up its activity.

After the above mentioned report of EU concerning preparedness of Hungary in 2003 the plants received deadline to eliminate their insufficiencies, especially the red meat processing plants till the end of December 2003, the others till 15^th March 2004.

	Red meat								Dairy
	High capacity				Low capacity				High capacity		Low capacity
											0,5-2,0 million l		Below 0,5 million l
	slaughter		processing		slaughter		processing
	03	04	03	04	03	04	03	04	03	04	03	04	03	04
compliance	27	42	32	24	16	17	67	117	31	32	-	2	2	2
compliance till access.	87*	17*	34	24	157	14	103	81	34*	16*	18*	-	20*	5*
insufficient after access.	7	40	3	11	47	55	21	153	4	8	1	10	4	18
Total	121	99	69	59	220	86	191	351	69	56	19	12	26	25

* 15 meat plans, 12 high and 9 small caps. dairies received 1 year exemption
Table 1 Comparison of situation in October 2003.and March 2004

The Hungarian authorities is obliged to implement two tier control, the first realised in October 2003 and the second one has to implemented in March 2004. Following the control about one- third of plan, 261 red meat plans and 36 dairy closed in 2003-2004 due to lack of compliance with EU requirement. The plans which received one year transitional exemption can continue its activity with constant capacity, but their production allowed marketing their products in Hungary.

After the closing of the national subsidies the preparation for compliance with EU requirements continued with the utilisation of the SAPARD sources since 2003 and after the accession with the sources of ARDOP.

3. Programs supported by EU funds

3.1. SAPARD

Over the given improvements the main aim of the program was to acquire the knowledge about the rules of utilisation of EU funds and to develop the serving institutions, internal guidelines and manuals. In the pre- accession period the Hungarian authorities prepared the assignment of funds but the final decision came in force by EU authorities.

Within the frame of SAPARD program the EU fund has to be completed with own resources which represented 50 % in the case of profit- oriented (business- type) investment and 25 % in the case of non-profit development. Within public money (EU fund and national support) the EU funds was 75 % in the productive sector and 80 % in the non- productive items. The program which is planned between 2000 and 2006 finally started in 2002 and due to accession its application period finalized in 2004 whilst the final accounts has to execute till 2006.

According to the planned version of SAPARD program the most significant proportion of funds oriented to the measures for the improvement of competitiveness in agriculture (58 %). Belongs this items were the investments in the agriculture and food sector, the support to the vocational training and the measure to help the start of organisation and operating of producers’ group. Only 4% of the sources were devised to help the success of the environmental aspects by the Hungarian Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. 37% of sources were designed for improvement the adaptation ability of the rural areas according to the SAPARD plan. The technical assistance was calculated by 1 % of fund. The original and the final version of measures and allocated funds in euro are summarized in the Table 2.

Table 2 Measures and allocated funds in Hungarian SAPARD

The data clearly express the position of the processing industry because in comparison to the original plan (20,5 %) at the end its proportional rate was 27,5 % within realized allocation.

The aim of the measure related to processing and marketing

This measure was one of the four accredited measures in 2002. (There is remarkable that one of this four measures (producers’ group) did not start belongs the SAPARD and this was a real loss related to the producers’ marketing.) The first invitation to the tenders was at 25^th September 2002 and it was repeated twice with the final application at 30^th April 2004. (Hungary joined to European Union at 1^st May 2004!) The main objectives of the measure included the following four pillars:

· Increasing of effectiveness on the markets

· Conformity to the rules of the EU related to the processing of agricultural goods

· Reduction of the environmental burden caused by processing

· Preservation of the working places and rate of employment as well, creating new jobs.

According to the above mentioned objectives the priorities of the applied funds are:

1. The conformity to the European rules including

• food safety and conformity to the hygienic standard of European legislation
• environmental improvements, modernisation and amelioration of the wastage handling
• fulfilment of the rules related to animal welfare

2. The improvement of competitiveness and quality

• improvement of competitiveness by the development of the technology and by the quality of the products.

4. Results

There were 772 applications to the measure related to processing and marketing of agricultural and fishery products from which were accepted 370 project. The whole budget of the supported project were 250,0 million euro from which the support was 79,6 million euro.

Belongs the SAPARD program the activity of the meat sector was the most significant (see in the Figure 2) The rates are characterized clearly that belongs the measure helping the processing industry the sources was utilized by meat sector by 31 %, 7 % was the dairy and same proportional rate was achieved by egg and poultry branch.

Within the figure above there is surprise the weak position of the poultry sector but it can be explained by newly and newly arising market disturbances and incalculableness during the period of the SAPARD program due to the avian influenza. There was also limitation factor that the SAPARD rules do not allowed to establish supplementary capacity. At the same time the setting up of the new production capacity was not a barrier to the meat industry although there was also not allowed the overcapacity on national level. It means that during these two years was significant rearrangement of the market so that the new capacities supported by SAPARD program means stopping of other capacities. The small proportional rate of dairy caused due to limitation of the capacity improvement. The 0% of milling branch means in this program only 1 project.

The so-called ex-post evaluation of the SAPARD program analysed the impacts of the sub-measures focusing to the quality improvement directly or indirectly as well. The general position of the braches also well demonstrated that the meat sector assigned higher proportion of the funds to the conformity to the EU rules because in this sector 28-29 % of funds was allocated to the improvement of quality at the same time this ratio was only 22 % in dairy sector (see in Figure 3).

The evaluation also investigated the impacts of measures related to quality measures. The related issue is summarized by the evaluation as follows:

Agricultural and Rural Development Operational Program (ARDOP)

Agricultural and Rural Development Operational Program (ARDOP)

The entitlement to Hungary in the SAPARD frame stopped at 1^st May 2004 due to our membership but the fact that Hungary became member of European Union means the opening of the existing EU fund to the members, namely the Agricultural and Rural Development Operational Program. Parallel to the accession Brussels recognized also the preparedness of Hungarian authorities and institutions to manage the EU funds, so the whole process from the invitation to tender including the evaluation of project, the control process to the payment became in the competence of Hungarian Agricultural and Rural Development Office.

The conditions of proportional rate to the public and private money in the ARDOP system practically were same as in the SAPARD projects. The allocation of the fund amongst the measures also was very similar to the former program. The biggest weight was represented by the so- called priority 1 which is “ Establish of competitive basic material production in agriculture” with 57 % of fund. The plan calculated to the priority 2 (namely “Modernisation of food processing”) 14 %. The proportional rate of priority 3 (“Development of rural areas”) was 26,5 % and the provision for technical assistance was 2,5 %. The allocation amongst the individual priorities and measures is introduced in the Table 3.

Table 3 Allocation amongst the individual priorities and measures of ARDOP

Modernisation of the food processing

Within the frame of this priority the main objectives of measure were formulated differently from SAPARD. According to this in the Program Supplement Document the main elements of the invitation to tender are the following:

1. Related to the improvement of competitiveness:

• the developments for structural rearrangement

• the developments for modernisation and decreasing of productions’ costs

• development of new, higher processed and innovative products

• improvements for adjustment to the different market channels

2. Related to the improvement of the safety of consumers and environment

• improvements to food safety and quality

• developments and modernisation for reduction of environmental burden and separate collection and handling of (dangerous) wastages within area of processing plant

• improvement of working conditions.

These objectives illustrates the hypothesis of the planning that the applicants reached the adequate level of conformity to the EU standards therefore the supports mainly focused to the developments aiming the improvement of competitiveness.

There was also a significant differences in comparison to SAPARD that within ARDOP there was also possibility to apply towards so called “large project” in which projects the lump sum of expenditures are over 300 million HUF ( 1,2 million €). The complexity was also character of the large projects what means that in these projects more than one objective was targeted by the applicants. The higher proportion of this project- type within ARDOP represented in the priority “Modernisation of processing industry”, about 20 % of sources was allocated to this type of applications. Taking into consideration that the improvements related quality was only determined as sub- measures so they are implemented solely in these complex projects. The success of the sub-measures within the complex aim of these 21 large projects is summarized in the Table 4

Targeted sector	Aims
	New products	Stabilize or strengthen market position	Higher processing level	Conformity with EU rules	Higher level of quality
Wine					+
Wine					+
Wine		+			+
Wine		+
Wine			+
Meat	+	+			+
Meat			+
Meat	+	+	+
Meat	+				+
Meat	+
Poultry				+	+
Poultry					+
Dairy				+
Dairy(cheese)	+
Dairy(cheese)		+			+
Honey				+
Honey	+				+
Mill				+	+
Mill		+
Canning				+	+
Deep-frozen		+		+	+

Table 4 Aims of large projects within priority “Modernisation of processing industry”

Belongs this priority the applicants basically will strengthen their competitiveness by technological development and their profitability. At the same time besides technological improvement the development of the associated quality system and their conditions also obtained significant role in the projects, mainly in the large projects. In these complex projects the beneficiaries declared the improvement of quality as the main objective. There is also indicated sometime the conformity with EU standard as aim partly parallel with the quality improvement to complete this aim, partly like independent aim as well. This last exist in such project where without this development the production is also in danger (like in dairies the execution of dirty water reservoir.) The dissemination of the funds amongst the sectors seriously differs from the SAPARD period (see in the figure 4)

The distribution illustrated above firmly represents that the majority of the application came from the meat, wine and fruit- vegetable sectors at the same time concerning the support level for their development the dairy was on the third position. Besides the distribution by sector there is also very remarkable is the distribution by size and type of company which is illustrated by Figure 5.

The structure of applicants by sector and size in Figure 5 well characterizes the openness of the players in the food processing towards the structural and updated challenges. Even these sectors endured the biggest losses on market in the last 15 years. It means firstly the loss of export markets and after the accession to European Union especially to its single market due to the strengthening of market competition realized the loss of home market as well. Therefore not realized the required development and the investments providing the conformity with the EU rules. The structural change which is motivated by the market situation yet not blows over in these sectors. The large amount of the application gave signal at this time that the companies are in awareness with the necessity improvement. The beneficiaries of the awarded tenders are not expressively members of winners on market but they can represent the future of the food sector. The applicants who are not awarded or cannot participate in this tendering process with high probability will be looser of the consolidation. The joining to this tender namely represent not only ability to fill in a documentation but postulate also some strategic mentality as well. This is readable in the Figure 5 also because the middle and large scale companies have the best ability to tenders e.g. typically they have middle or long-term strategy.

Related to the quality measures of meat and dairy sector there is also characteristic and direct consequence of the previous steps in SAPARD and sector conditions that although the awarded support was very similar in both sector the food safety sub- measure was more typical in the dairy sector (see in the Figure 6).

5. Structural, institutional measures related to food safety

Both the planning and realisation of the program for development was significantly influenced by the change of the system for public inspection.

The experience of the two- tier investigation was also that the control of authorities has to implement with an uniform system and for development of this the Ministry established an professional working group in 2003. Based on their activity till the second control the uniform professional documentation prepared helping the control of authorities in 2004 and the better professional training of the staff of authorities as well.

The activities of authorities had to consider the different interests of the producers, processors and consumers as well. The fragmentation of the institutes also represents this difference as it was mentioned also in the introduction. For the better co-ordination of the tasks the government established the Food Safety Office in 2003. This agency originally established with the supervision of Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development with the co- financing of Ministry of Health for co-ordination of scientific tasks. The Food Law in 2003 and the common regulation of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Economy determined also significant tasks to co-ordinate the tasks of authorities. The Office in 2005 passed belongs to the Ministry of Health with the parallel determination of the main objectives of institute including the following:

· co-ordination of the scientific risk analysis;

· co-ordination of the control of authorities related to food and feed;

· operate the rapid alert system;

· providing the information flow

· authentic, careful communication with attention to the population’s interest

· primary contact with the international institutions (EU- EFSA, DG SANCO)

· assistance of the entrepreneurs in the preparation to the new requirement

The supervision of this institution due to the law 115 in 2007 and related governmental regulation changed again and by this way since 1^st July 2007 the Hungarian Food Safety Office is belong to the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development. The Office is independent legal person, fully disposal on its budget, but some minor financial activities are belongs the Agricultural Administration Office. The total budget of Office is determined by Parliament as a line in the chapter of Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. The whole staffs of Office are 18 persons.

Within the national tasks of Office besides the scientific risk analysis there is highly important the professional and public information including consumers’ information as well. The basic professional issues, the long-term vision are investigated by the Scientific Advisory Body, the professional topics are deeply analyzed by the Scientific Committees and the inspection items are discussed by the Coordination Committee. This institutional network provides the multilateral approach and the social openness as well. This openness is guaranteed by the composition of these bodies and committees because besides the representatives of concerned ministries (agriculture, health, social, environment, and economy) the representatives of professional and civil organisation are also equal right members. (At same time the power of civil side is very weak which can characterize by the fact that in the main body from 17 members 11 is delegated by different ministries…)

The web side of the Office is a very important tool to inform the consumer and professional partners as well. There is also important tool the media contacts. Both are frequently used when the European Food Safety Agency give rapid alert signal but these communication channels also used to distribute the national information to the targeted population.

Notes

A.1.4. The web side of the Office is a very important tool to inform the consumer and professional partners as well. There is also important tool the media contacts. Both are frequently used when the European Food Safety Agency give rapid alert signal but these communication channels also used to distribute the national information to the targeted population.Hungarian reporting service
against illegal and harmful
Internet content

Hotline.hu SIAP2003HL10 / 28953 Project

Final Report for Publishing

1. General Overview of Activities

The Hungarian hotline service www.internethotline.hu, that stands up against some criminal internet activities was set up in May 2005 based on a European and international standard in the frame of INHOPE Association, which has currently more than 25 members in 23 countries and growing rapidly. The budget of the European Union provides the funding source for its operation through the Safer Internet (Plus) programme. The Hungarian Association of Content Industry (Magyar Tartalomipari Szövetség, MATISZ) – is entitled through a won European Union’s project to set up and operate the Hungarian hotline system. After meeting the basic requirements, which were definitely not low regarding the technical and other conditions, the delegation of INHOPE came to Budapest to survey the situation, and then at a general assembly meeting in Paris they enrolled MATISZ (on the obligatory way for a full year as a provisional member) – with two other candidates. This procedure lead to the „naturalization” of the quite strict INHOPE standards, which were created following 15 year of Western European experience. In June 2006 MATISZ finally obtained INHOPE Full Membership.

In Europe and on other developed parts of the world in connection with the daily use of the Internet the main danger in the field of pornography is the significant threat of paedophiles; child-pornography. The most defenceless group is the children, therefore for their protection the reporting hotlines were set up by civil organizations focusing on the battle against this special „industry” cooperating closely with the local police.

MATISZ has undertaken the endeavour, which is not easy itself, and in the twist of the initial swing MATISZ aimed at surplus tasks; taking into consideration the current European nature, MATISZ tries with a further profile, and fights against the illegal (prohibited by law) digital contents, and also deals with the harmful Internet contents, which affects especially some groups of the society. We knew, that at this latter „grey” category, the legal tools are unsuitable, we can only reach the exclusion or at least the limitation of harmful contents only with a social pressing (public opinion, professional organizations cooperative help, the formed good contractual relations with the web hosts, alternative debate-handling etc.)

Against the illegal, unlawful digital contents everywhere in the world the police has the right and the obligation to step up. In wealthier countries the problem is the imperfection of the capacity of the authority, and the fact, that most citizens are not willing to turn to the authority. This activity tries to give a solution for this situation with the„socialization” of the defence, and with the revoke of the civil and professional organizations.

According to the international trend we can surely state that the seamy side of the internet accessibility en masse will bring to the front the struggle against child pornography, in which MATISZ – likely every other reporting hotline – can only be mediator, but can do this kind of activity in the widest circle efficiently. According to the Hungarian law and the law in the Union it is forbidden to search for these kinds of internet contents through the internet, and above of all, it is also prohibited to store the reported homepages and to make public the data of the concerned or the reports.

The hotlines run by mostly civil organizations have a further advantage, which is that they form an international network, therefore they can rapidly coax a local measure, while among the national police the official cooperation can take away days or weeks. (eg:. If they report us a website with an illegal content, with a suitable software we can investigate, where it came from. For instance if there is a Hungarian „enterprise”, which operates through a German service provider, there are at least three German hotline partner, who can help us, which practically means that they can forward the report of MATISZ in 1-2 hours to the police, which cooperates with them, which has to make steps in case of removing the illegal content.

The Hungarian Association of Content Industry - MATISZ after making a huge effort for several months, about fighting against illegal content, drew up a cooperation agreement with the Hungarian National Police (Országos Rendőrfőkapitányság, ORFK) in May 2005.

The reports made by the citizens, are taking care of MATISZ by an internal report-handling infrastructure, which was set up according to the requirements of the European Union and INHOPE. Unauthorized persons can not have access to any data of the reporting person, or of the person who is reported, not even of the content.

After checking the real content of a given report, and the location of the web service provider (making sure it is in Hungary) the prepared and trained hotline-operator decides the following: if the content undoubtedly unlawful, the operator forwards the URL address to the competent department of the National Bureau of Investigation (Nemzeti Nyomozó Iroda, NNYI), which has the right to take action. (in case of foreign service provider, the partner of the country). According to our co-operation agreement with CERT-Hungary, this well-equipped organization provides technical assistance to determine the real location of a reported content server - if needed.

If there is a doubt, and the operator calls in question, then we consult with the legal expert specialized at law and do the necessary steps. If we are „only” talking about harmful or dangerous, but legally not prohibited content, the best way to solve the problem is to use the above mentioned social pressing and convincing the professional service providers by consultancies and meetings.

We made quite a lot of steps in 2006 to promote the Hungarian hotline services and make it well known among the people:

· We put information, description of the hotline activity with the website’ address and phone numbers on our own and on our members’ websites.

· In the media (daily newspapers, radio and television programmes, professional forums etc.) dozens of news, interviews, talks were published. The contacts of the Hungarian hotline were published on the most popular Hungarian websites.

· With the help of the Budapest Institute of Education we passed informational leaflets to the high schools asking for the teachers to help disseminating the service among the students.

· During professional events we tried to popularize and promote the Hungarian hotline. We disseminated information in 2006 on the Safer Internet Day, on the Broadband Internet Day, and on the annually organized DAT Conference – to name the most important ones.

· The mostly affected target group are the adolescents, and to have their attention MATISZ – together with its Friendly Internet Forum partners and the Hungarian Awareness Node – organized in 2005 the local tasks of the Safer Internet Storytelling Competition. In 2006, the focus topic of Safer Internet Day was blogathlons all over Europe.

In the year 2006 reports arrived to our hotline service in weaves – after publishing in press or giving an interview in the media the reports and corresponding hotline work increased. Our 1-month banner campaign in Summer 2006 with the renewed logo and flash banners also served our service well.

Around 50-60% of the reports referred to pornographic content or such that was considered pornographic, and approximately 20% of these could be paedophile, child pornography content. (This means photos and videos in connection with chat-forums – but according to the international experience the occurrence of these quite frequent, but reports have not arrived to us.) In these cases - on the already reviewed way - we got in contact with the National Bureau of Investigation (NNYI), where the officers took clean and legal actions to eliminate the concerned contents.

In more cases we could not find the paedophile content on the reported URL address– so it could be that they only put it there temporary. However most of these reports were adult pornographic (hetero-, homo-, and other sexual) content, which are not prohibited by the Hungarian law. In these cases we have more limited means to act. (It is another question that, in the cases of other homepages they do not even keep that basic rule, that says, at the first clicking there has to be a warning in a proper form, which gives an opportunity for the older than 18 years old to decide whether she/he wants to continue the searching on the site… At the end of the year we had a negative experience with the General Inspectorate for Consumer Protection, because they did not even answer for a real case, which we reported to them.

Some 10% of the reports refer to harmful or dangerous political, historical, religious, and artistic expressions or imageries. In relation of these, it became obvious that the reporting people are too sensitive, and they are rather lead by their emotions and passions than by the rationalism. In spite of some definite cases it seems to be very difficult to deal with this very swampy field looking at the police, other authorities, especially for the civil organizations. The main responsibility belongs to the owners and editors of the website.

In 2006 number of spam reports increased significantly – most coming from outside Europe. We co-operated with our industry partner, the Council of Hungarian ISPs to tackle this problem but without much success. We could only inform complaining report-makers about personal defensive methods and could recommend effective spam-filtering software solutions to them.

2. Project Activities in Chronology

Although the hotline reporting service run by MATISZ is still operational, the Hotline.hu project has already finished. The project itself run between September 1, 2004 and August 31, 2006 period. The activities of this 24 months is covered below split up to 8 quarters, as well as the preceding activities which reveal our previous preparations.

Preparation phase (Nov.2002 – Aug.2004 - beyond contracting and reporting)

MATISZ collected information about EU Safer Internet (formerly: eSafe) Programme and took preliminary measures about the situation in Hungary and related Hungarian law. We designed and started to implement structured method of concertation by preliminary discussions with potential co-operating partners and stakeholders. We also made a visibility-enhancement plan. We also took part on informational events (eSafe Public Hearing meeting, INHOPE members meeting) and –partly as a visibility-raising activity– organized a promotional event, the 1^st Friendly Internet Forum (Barátságos Internet Fórum, BIF) Conference - Safer Internet Day in Budapest.

2.1. 1^st Quarter (Sept.2004 – Nov.2004)

We started our project planning activities, so we created a detailed work plan, analysed the illegal and harmful content types and planned the hotline equipment and report-handling infrastructure (website, IVR, database). We also started contracting with co-operating partners and stakeholders. We organized a steering committee kick-off meeting and a promotional event (DAT2004 Conference ‘Friendly Internet’ section), took part on INHOPE members meeting and promotional event (PiK-SYS Conference). We created a report from the main key areas of harmful and illegal content and law enforcement, collected the methodologies of INHOPE and the European local hotline operators and made a short report based on that and also created a report form the current status of annual statistics related to predefined groups.

2.2. 2^nd Quarter (Dec.2004 – Febr.2005)

As project planning we created a methodology for hotline operations (operational procedures manual). We also established the hotline equipment and report-handling infrastructure: started the website (www.internethotline.hu) and filled up with relevant information, set up the reporting form, made the voice-menu structure, programmed up the IVR and set up and tested the report-handling database. We further contracted with co-operating partners and stakeholders, with ISP and content providers and also chose and trained the hotline operators. We were not allowed to take part on the following INHOPE members meeting, but took part on a roundtable discussion, where the Hungarian Awareness Node introduced it’s own activity and also organized a promotional event (2^nd BIF Conference - Safer Internet Day) and the Story-telling Contest in Hungary. We also started our hotline service on 1^st February. We had no reports in February and statistics template from INHOPE was not available at that time -because we were not yet INHOPE members, so creating the statistics based on network template was postponed beyond 3^rd Quarter. Same happened with six-monthly progress report.

2.3. 3^rd Quarter (March 2005 – May 2005)

We finally had an understanding on co-operation with the police after a lot of previous formal and informal preparations and discussions. We consider contracting the Hungarian Police quite a success as the they usually very cautious to formally sign cooperation agreement with a non-governmental organization. Signing the cooperation agreement has happened on the highest possible level, which also shows that we succeed in earning their trust and to accept our organization as well as the hotline service. During this period we contracted with further co-operating partners and stakeholders as well.

Although our hotline is operational since February 2005, we could designed the hotline logo(s) in April. Giving a unique face for the website and service, however, was important and the logo(s) could be well used during the following promotional activities.

We also took part on promotional events – as part of the visibility-raising activities  –, like OFE Conference and IHM Broadband Internet Day. On the latter, Friendly Internet Forum (BIF) had an exhibition booth, where our hotline service was introduced to the visitors by volunteering booth helpers coming from a secondary school and dressing in internethotline.hu T-shirts.

INHOPE visited our new hotline and our stakeholders in April and we also took part on an INHOPE members meeting in Paris afterwards, where our Hotline obtained INHOPE Provisional Membership status. To obtain the Full membership, however, we should accomplish a given condition.

We had plans for the assessment methodology well before the 3^rd Quarter, but after obtaining the INHOPE Provisional Membership status In May, and getting access to INHOPE resources including the standardized “Hotline Assessment Tool” we focused and rethought our assessment methodology / plan based on that. We renewed the report on contribution to network that was included in the 1^st Progress Report and we also managed the project covered by a quarterly management report.

2.4. 4^th Quarter (June 2005 – August 2005)

We could – along with our INHOPE Provisional Membership status – finally access the INHOPE Monthly Hotline Statistics form, and thus fill in the monthly statistics based on INHOPE network template. We also created a six-monthly progress report for 3^rd and 4^th Quarter and an intermediate assessment report was written as well based on the formerly created assessment plan. After noticing the relatively low amount of reports, we improved our visibility-enhancement plan that was originally created at the 1^st Progress Report.

In spite of the usually uneventful holiday season, the visibility-raising activities continued as our hotline staff appeared in two summer informatics camps, where they could reach altogether more than 600 child (aged 14-18) talking about internet safety, the EU Storytelling Competition and promoting our hotline service as well. A representative of the Hungarian Awareness Node (our Friendly Internet Forum partner) also took part on a Safer Internet Forum and Safer Internet Plus Information Day held in Luxembourg, where he spread our hotline one-page promotional material and summarized the lesson of the event afterwards.

In this period we contracted with further co-operating partners and stakeholders and we continuously updated the www.internethotline.hu website with relevant news/events and placed the logos of new partners (linking to the partner websites)

We also managed the project covered by a quarterly management report.

2.5. 5^th Quarter (September 2005 – November 2005)

To reinforce the visibility-raising activities - noticing the relatively low amount of reports- we started to design new, more eye-catching logo and corresponding animated flash banners – to be used in online and offline media as well as in promotional activities like banner campaigns. We also present the project on promotional events – as part of the visibility-raising activities –, like 3 I Academy and RICOMNET 2005 Conferences. The EU reviewed our hotline and had discussions with us and our stakeholders in November. We had to skip one INHOPE members meeting due to budgetary reasons. Since we obtained the INHOPE Provisional Membership status In May 2005, and thus got access to INHOPE resources including the INHOPE Monthly Hotline Statistics form, reporting statistics is done on a standardized way. We also managed the project covered by a quarterly management report.

2.6. 6^th Quarter (December 2005 – February 2006)

The new logo and corresponding animated flash banners become ready. As for the visibility-raising activities, the regular Safer Internet Day event was organized all over Europe in February; in Hungary, the 3^rd BIF Conference was organized that day by the BIF-members - including MATISZ. We also took part on the next INHOPE members meeting, where MATISZ was asked to held a presentation on a given topic. In this period we continuously updated the www.internethotline.hu website with relevant news/events and also managed the project covered by a quarterly management report.

2.7. 7^th Quarter (March 2006 – May 2006)

MATISZ took part on various visibility-raising events like KincsM Festival and Broadband Internet Day -organized by the Ministry of Informatics (IHM)- to promote our hotline. We also redesigned the hotline web-interface to be better arranged and more up-to-the-task. Reporting statistics was done by using the standardized INHOPE Monthly Hotline Statistics form. We also managed the project covered by a quarterly management report.

2.8. 8^th Quarter (June 2006 – August 2006)

We took part on the next INHOPE members meeting, where MATISZ applied for and obtained INHOPE Full Membership status. In this period the industry cooperation was also strengthen; Friendly Internet Forum (BIF) was expanded with CERT-Hungary. As part of visibility-raising, our hotline appeared on the m1 public TV channel. In this period we continuously updated the www.internethotline.hu website with relevant news/events and also managed the project covered by a quarterly management report.

A.1.5. eContent-eFarmer

Presentation of a case study eContent EDC 11221 efarmer
N⁰ of participants: 3847ps, plus additional (voluntary): 1087ps

Mr. György BISZTRAY –B.

president, HASME

I. Project overviewand its objectives

Tibor Sutóris:
eFarmer project manager
Novitech Plc, Slovakia

Administrative Project details

Contract No. EDC 11221	Content Programme
	Business project
Concluded with Directorate General for Information Society, European Commission on 24th December 2004
Project Consortium:	9 partners
	lead by Novitech Plc., Slovakia
Duration :	26 months
Project start date :	1^th January 2005
Finished :	28^th February 2007
Total budget :	€ 3.739.711
EC contribution :	€ 1.899.602

Participants and Roles

· Novitech (SK) – coordinator, implementer

· Slovak Chamber of Agriculture and Food Industry (SK) - agro-participant

· Slovak University of Agriculture (SK) - academic participant

· Szent István University (HU) - academic participant, implementer

· Small and Medium Size Enterprises Union (HU) - agro-participant

· National Council of Agricultural Chambers (PL) - agro-participant

· Agriculture Chamber of the Czech Republic (CZ) – agro-participant

· Mendel University of Agriculture and Forestry (CZ) – academic participant

+ Food and Agriculture SEUR (HU) – organization of the UN

· Agro-participant – manages demonstration activities, specify country-specific requirements of eFARMER services, RPA interfaces

· Academic participant - develop (collect) community standard CAP content, organize trainings

Expected Results of the Project

· Creation of a FARMER content transformation system producing up-to-date rural-aid related content services (the static use of eFARMER content),

· Introduction of a set of rural aid compilation and electronic submission web services (the dynamic use of eFARMER content),

· Demonstration of the sustainability of the business model for providing these services to target farmers on a commercial basis through a network of representatives using eFarmer services – so called eFarmers (eFARMER demonstration).

eFarmer main process diagram

eFarmer main process diagram

The eFarmer Service Model

The eFarmer Service Model

Users and Beneficiaries

· eFarmer services users :

o eFarmers (advisors) authorised by farmers

o Single farmers (direct access)

o Agriculture associations, Farmer advisors

· Benefits for users :

o Access to up-to-date information – CAP content (=what are the farmer entitlements)

o To save communication cost with RPA by surface mail or by person, no penalties for missing claim submission terms and returned claims,

o Error correction – significantly reduce claim errors and rate of incomplete documents

· Benefits for RPA:

o Reducing transaction costs in information dissemination

o Reducing transaction costs in claim processing

User needs and requirements

· Content Access is linked with Content Usage by supporting the Claim Submission over the Internet

· Based on the results from Risk Management User needs are reflected in 4 Levels:

o Level 0 – Content services only

o Level 1 – Basic model of Claim Submission without direct interconnection with RPA

o Level 2 – Enhanced model of Claim Submission. However, the Interconnection with RPA is implemented, due to legislative regulations the Claim submission is done in parallel by surface mail, too.

o Level 3 – Final solution of Claim Submission based fully on electronic Claim Submission.

Other services – advisory, field surface measuring by GPS,...

Remark: the higher levels include the lower ones, too.

User needs and requirements

Synergies:

· eFarmer supports RPA in info campaigns to farmers

· RPA consults implementation of new schemes with the eFarmer project team

User needs and requirements

Cross-border Nature of Content and Services

· The project builds cross-border services transforming public sector CAP content. This new content is derived from the following sources:

o Community standard content (DG Agriculture)

o Country specific CAP content from V4 countries

· Support for cross-border farmers. Example: farmers in EU country A can use CAP content and submit claim in EU country B.

eFarmer Services = One common CAP window for an EU farmer

for:Information retrieval and Claim submission

II. Demonstration of eFarmer solution

Milan Varga
eFarmer chief developer
Novitech Plc, Slovakia Agenda of presentation)

Agenda of presentation

· eFarmer system introduction

· Main functional areas of eFarmer system

· O-O Content Model

· Live demonstration

eFarmer system top level view

eFarmer system top level view

Main functional areas of eFarmer system

Main functional areas of eFarmer system

Main functional areas of eFarmer system

	Documents	Guide	Legislation	Decision	Directive	Announcement	Publication	Regulation	Summary
CZ CoAP	1	5	22	0	0	0	0	0	28
HU CoAP	0	23	59	0	1	0	0	56	139
PL CoAP	32	17	204	0	0	0	0	0	253
SK CoAP	0	13	93	2	14	0	11	4	137
Common CAP	95	0	54	4	1	26	0	1	181
Summary	128	58	432	6	16	26	11	61	738

III. Achieved results within the project

Tibor Sutóris:
eFarmer project manager
Novitech Plc, Slovakia

1. Project objectives accomplishment

1.1. Creation of FARMER content transformation system

· Content transformation system implemented and fully operational in accordance with project scope

· User interface in 5 languages: EN, CZ, HU, PL, and SK

· Intelligent object oriented content structure

· Content system built on taxonomical technology elements

· Object classes are organised into subclasses

· Classes and subclasses have their own attributes

· Ontology technology is used for definition of dynamic content

· Number of documents within the Content: HU – 165, SK – 150, PL- 230, CZ – 28, and 86 documents from general CAP

· Documents fully cover actual needs of farmers

· Access to Content is free of charge in 2007 (only farmer registration is needed)

1.2. Dynamic use of FARMER content

· Generally designed for electronic rural aid claim submission

· System is capable for claim preparation, error correction, printing

	Planned number of scenarios	Number of implemented scenarios	RPA InterFace
HU	2	8	YES
SK	2	10	Emulation only
PL	2	9	Emulation only
CZ	2	4	Emulation only
Total	8	31	-

· Electronic claim submission is operational in HU. Due to legislative barriers only submission simulation is implemented in CZ, PL, and SK. System is prepared for electronic claim submission and waiting for legislative changes.

· Number of implemented schemes within countries: HU – 8, SK – 10, PL - 9, and CZ – 4.

· Implementation of new schemes is solved within MS Office environment – automatic transformation by the system

· Results fully cover project objectives except for RPA interface within 3 countries

1.3. Demonstration of the sustainability

· Dissemination activities proved the farmers’ interest for such a service

· System tested by eFarmers during WorkShops

· Interest is shown in the table below by number of Infoday attendees and number of farmers registered within the eFarmer portal (possible future eFarmers)

· Results fully cover project objectives

	Number of WorkShop attendees	Number of InfoDay attendees	Number of registered farmers within the portal
HU	39	1451	1287
SK	33	898	486
PL	280	2770	1197
CZ	71	855	129
Other	-	-	417
Total	423	5974	3516

IV. Description of difficulties encountered and corrective actions taken

Tibor Sutóris
eFarmer project manager
Novitech Plc, Slovakia) Results from mid-term review

During the mid-term review in 03/2006 problematic areas were found which were addressed to:

· Technical (agreed technical platform) and managerial issues (overall quality) including internal communication problems

· Collaboration with RPAs and the setup of the appropriate agreements (even strategic) as soon as possible including other achievable solutions and workarounds

Possible solutions submitted in three Project improvement reports:

· Managerial aspects

· Technical infrastructure

· Cooperation with RPAs

1. Managerial aspects

Information exchange and communication within the consortium

· The communication problems - mostly resulting from cultural diversities and language barriers => not substantial

o to maximize mutual communication à electronic communication facilities

o Teleconferencing

§ Saving time and travel cost

§ Sound and video streaming

§ Sharing presenter or participant screen/PC

§ Document exchange

§ Video/Audio recording from the meetings for later playback

o Teleconferencing on weekly basis: consortium meetings and ad-hoc [technical meetings]

o Other communication forms: email, Skype,...

Consortium agreement

· Consortium agreement – initially prepared during kick-off period but not signed by all project members

· After mid-term review the discussion about CA was reopened

· Finally signed in the original form by all consortium members

Solution related to time delay in project implementation

· During Mid-term Review: Project had a time delay

· Cause: Poor cooperation with RPAs (mainly legislative problems)

· eFarmer WorkPlan adjusted

Other managerial aspects

· Improvement of English documenation – new native English speaking person within project staff for document proofreading

· Consortium reorganisation – new member entered the Consortium – FAO SEUR (joint under NT as member without budget)

· Concentration on PL and HU markets [Largest]

· Czech and Slovak Republic: Level 1 service only and related legislation content follow-up

· Project Deliverables updated with new Deliverable D4.4 – Tested generic eFarmer services

· Minor changes in the technical solution – CAT dropped out from the project, Content functionality improvement,

2. Technical infrastructure

Main aspects

· Document required by Mid-term review results

· Document Purpose – specify common understanding and commitment of development partners

· Document describes and specifies:

o Functional structure of the eFarmer system (Claim submission)

o eFarmer Content system functionality

o eLearning portal functionality

o Other services

o Integration of functionality described above

o SW architecture

o HW architecture

· Document agreed and signed by main developement partners: NT, SZIE, and MZLU

3. Cooperation with RPAs

Main aspects

· Document required by Mid-term review results

· Document Purpose –providing information on actual cooperation status with Rural Payment Agencies (RPA) in the V4 Countries

· Status by countries:

o Hungary: SZIE – 02/2006: cooperation agreement concluded between SZIE and MVH . Subject of agreement – implementation of online Claim submission interface Level 2 starting from 2006 season

o Poland: In 2005 ARiMR and KRIR concluded a strategic cooperation agreement on the electronic exchange of CAP information. Level 2 interface planned for 2006. ARiMR plans Level 3 interface for 2007 claim submission season.

o Slovakia: in 2006 basic cooperation agreement signed between SPPK and PPA. Document has a strategic character.

o Czech Republic: No agreement has been reached

V. Description of difficulties encountered and corrective actions taken

Attila Tóth
PhD.: eFarmer project director
Novitech Plc, Slovakia)

Status at project closing period

1. Difficulties and Corrective Actions

1.1. Business targets partially met:

Scope of the Service:

· Essential content uploaded and indexed by the content partners (KRIR and Universities).

· Part of the Hungarian content temporarily hosted on the internal server of SZIE

· Other countries do not involve this intermediate solution.

Scope of the Service:

· On-line claim submission service in Poland, Czech Republic and Slovakia not completed due to unresponsiveness of Rural Payments Agencies.

Comment: Hungarian on-line RPA service implemented and opened for Hungarian eFarmers in 2006.

1.2. Business Plan – additional functionality:

· Full transposition of PSI re-use EC Directive

· Obligatory application by member state administrations
(including Rural Payment Agencies): enable on-line access and re-use of PSI

Remedial Actions - Regulatory effort :

· Active involvement in EU ePSIplus project “ ECP-2005-PSI-038081: Towards the 2008 review of the Directive on PSI re-use”

· Use findings and recommendations of ePSIplus in order to maintain more intensive relationships with rural payment and implementation agencies in V4 countries.

· Rules on re-use codified in Directive shown in ANNEX 2 of Exploitation Plan

Service financing:

· Introduction of paid services: Annual member fees and/or claim based fees

· Acquisition of new financing service channels

Operating company structure:

· Involvement of additional stakeholders (e.g. private advisory entities, venture capital, hosting companies, etc.).

· Company registration depends on ownership structure à creation in progress. (See updated Exploitation Plan)

2. Exploitation Results

Stage	Services	Impact
Period: 2004 - 2006
Stage 1 eFarmer EU project	Structured Internet access to CAP legislation Claim completion assistance Claim submission – manual Claim submission – Internet	Quick and up-to-date orientation of farmers on CAP grants and advice on the current and eligible grants for a given farm www.efarmer.sk , cz, pl, hu
Period: 2007 – 2009
Stage 2 PPP	Farm centered services Extension to other grants (FP7,CIP, Structural funds, ...) Part of Farm Advisory Services	www.erural.eu One common country source of EU grant information services for farmers.
Stage 3 PPP	Integration with other Farm Advisory Services Full grant life-cycle (claim, payment, use of funds)	Better compliance Less administration cost on farmer side

REFLECTING CURRENT TRENDS ON THE CLAIM SERVICE MARKET

3. Sustainable business operations

3.1. Transfer to sustainable business operations

Main tasks:

• Present and obtain approval for the updated 2007-2009 Business Plan during the eFarmer Steering Committee Meeting held on April 25th 2007.
• Establishment of the eRural Plc shareholder company. The shareholder category structure indicated in the Baseline Business model is still applicable. Timing: 07/2007
• Finalization of the 3 year Business Plan and shareholder approval. Timing: 10/2007
• Registration and staffing of eRural Plc. Timing: 11/2007
• Start sustainable business operation. Timing: 01/2008

3.2. Future arrangements

Transition Period Arrangements - 02-12/2007

1. Novitech a.s. – eFarmer service hosting and maintainance

2. Consortium content partners: Regular update eFarmer country content, including: new rural-aid schemes, regulations and guidelines announced by Rural Payments Agencies

3. Efforts during transition period considered as contribution in kind to eRural Plc assets.

VI. Aspects related to EU standards
Interoperability benefits of EU, FAO and W3C standards
(St Stephen University, Hungary)

Papócsi László
WP2 Leader
Szent István Egyetem Hungaria)

Agricultural Direct Payments

· Legislative background (1782/2003, 796/2004)

· Hierarchical data structures needed to represent eligibility business rules: XML/XSD

· Commodity groups, code lists (usage)

· NUTS codes, physical blocks (area)
Collaboration w. DG Agri, CAP-ED, IDABC initiative

Ö eFarmer solution:

· „Catalogue” CMS tools

· Query taxonomic browser

CAP Reform: Cross Complience

· SPS: single payment scheme (shift until 2009)

· Condition of getting paid: fullfilling „EU Standards”

· Complex rules decoded in 19 „statutory management requirements”

· Obligatory Farm Advisory System to assist farmers to understand and comply with rules

Ö eFarmer solution: Scheme Assistant

Ö eFarmer plan: Profiling farms by EU tipology

FAO standards in eFarmer

FAO Agricultural Information Management Standards in eFarmer

· AgMES Metadata Standards in Agriculture (DC extension)

Ö eFarmer solution: represented in eFarmer CMS document resource entitiy attributes

· AGROVOC:

o Thesaurus and ontology

o Web service (available in HU, SK, CZ / PL in progress)

Ö eFarmer plan:

o concept / multilingual search (accessing WS)

o indexing documents (keyword assignment)

Public content services

Public eFarmer content services by SzIE IT system at Project Closure

· RSS feeds (daily updated)

· EU-Info: OJ content, Regulations, News, Tenders

· Web services (valid WSDL and working service)

1. eSAPS web service (RPA Hu, contracted SzIE partner)

1. LPIS block web service

2. Eligibility/scheme calculator application

3. EU-Info (see above)

· Claim completion (online and offline)

o XSD (data structure scheme)

o XSLT (business rules description) W3C standards

Ö eFarmer plan: to be implemented in eFarmer

eFARMER- RPA Cooperation in HU

eFARMER- RPA Cooperation in HU

RPA-HU eSAPS07 – eFarmer Process Monitoring System

RPA-HU eSAPS07 – eFarmer Process Monitoring System

RPA-HU eSAPS07 – eFarmer Process Monitoring System

RPA-HU eSAPS07 – eFarmer Process Monitoring System

RPA-HU eSAPS07 error messages Weblink <–> Details by eFarmer

RPA-HU eSAPS07 error messages Weblink <–> Details by eFarmer

RPA-HU eSAPS07 <–> eFarmer Online Helpdesk

RPA-HU eSAPS07 <–> eFarmer Online Helpdesk

RPA-HU eSAPS07 <–> eFarmer offline editor

RPA-HU eSAPS07 <–> eFarmer offline editor

RPA-HU eSAPS07 <–> eFarmer offline editor

RPA-HU eSAPS07 <–> eFarmer offline editor

Standardised EU Farm Tipology

Standardised EU Farm Tipology process within eFarmer Solution (2007)

1a) Claim dataset result output

1b) Direct user input

2) Mapping from 1a

3) FADN tipology input from 1b&2

4) Stored procedure – result:

5) Claimant profile by size and activity classes

6) Various content resources (farm management, economic projections, offers, documents, etc) indexed to class groups

7) Selective content presentation, feedback

W3C standards

· XML, XSD, XSLT, DOM:

o e-Forms design, validation, business rules
(MS InfoPath, Altova and open source tools)

· X-REF value added CAP documents
(see example next slide)

· RDF:

o RSS feeds

· OWL:

o AGROVOC ontology

o Protege content models

1. Aspects related to national standards

(Milan Varga eFarmer chief developer Novitech Plc, Slovakia varga_milan@novitech.sk)

Form development process

Slovak Forms – paper version Slovak Forms – InfoPath

Slovak Forms – Web form Slovak Forms – Printed form

Hungarian Forms – paper version Hungarian Forms – InfoPath

Hungarian Forms – Web form Hungarian Forms – Printed form

Czech Forms – paper version Czech Forms – InfoPath

Czech Forms – Web form Czech Forms – Printed form

Poland Forms – paper version Poland Forms – InfoPath

Poland Forms – Web form Poland Forms – Printed form

VII. Information dissemination and exploitation

1. General dissemination activities

(Tibor Sutóris eFarmer project manager Novitech Plc, Slovakia sutoris@novitech.sk)

Dissemination activities

· LANDnet international conference – 05/2005, Budapest HU

ü Activating e-Community on Land Market related Fields in CEE Countries

ü focused on e-Content, e-Governance strategic objectives

ü NT presented eFarmer project

ü Small exhibition arranged by SZIE

· Země živitelka agricultural exhibition – 08/2005, Č. Budějovice CZ

ü Presentations and seminars

ü Meetings with professional agricultural associations

· International conference – 11/2005, Visegrad HU

ü First Experience with Structural Funds in Viewpoint of V4 Countries

ü NT presented the eFarmer project and its awareness

· Awareness and dissemination event – 07/2006, Novot SK

ü Joint event of Slovak and Polish Agricultural Chambers

ü Project presentation and experience exchange

ü Presentations provided by NT and KRIR

· eFarmer international conference – 02/2007, Budapest HU

ü Conference organised within the eFarmer project

ü Project and its achievements presented by consortium partners

ü International guest, mainly from Agricultural ministries and Rural Payment Agencies

ü Conference organised during the AgroMash agricultural exhibition

2. Dissemination results from InfoDays in HU provided by SZIE

(Papócsi László WP2 Leader Szent István Egyetem, Hungaria szie@efarmet.net)

Selection of participants

Criteria for organisation in target groups selection

· Farmers from every size and activity type

· Mainly located in the central Hungarian region

· Open for other interested participants

· SzIE InfoDays included experts from both agricultural state advisory network and SzIE university

· Responsibility of state advisors: inviting and gathering farmers and producers from their own respective small regions.
Indicated below as “coordinators”.

Organisation details

SzIE coordinators and presenters

· Mrs Krisztina Tóth, Farm Advisory System expert

· Mr. Csaba Pesti, European Rural Development and Agricultural (ERDA) Fund expert
Aim: Highlight how eFarmer portal services could contribute to better dissemination and management of agricultural related information.

Way of invitation

· Letters, emails, telephone calls, internet news publishing on agro-portals

Territorial coverage

· Central Hungary

Promotional activities

· Internet: www.gak.hu, www.efarmer.hu, www.efarmer.net

· Leaflets: original eFarmer leaflets circulated, plus new photocopied handouts distributed, plus new eFarmer video clip was displayed

· Banners at agro-portals: Agro Napló, Agrárkapu, Agrárbázis, EU-Info, GAK

Dates and places – 2006 Dates and places - 2007

no	day	Place	participants	coordinator
1	1	SzIE Gödöllő	16	VSZOSZ, TK
2	6	Dabas	32	Baranyi
3	7	Kisnémedi	8	Tóth Krisztina
4	11	GAK TSzK	18	Papócsi
5	12	Ceglédbercel	12	Nagy Gábor
6	12	Dabas	62	Baranyi
7	12	Cegléd	60	Nagy Gábor
8	13	Bugyi	24	Baranyi
9	18	GAK TSzK	8	Papócsi
10	20	Bugyi	16	Baranyi
			256

no	day	Place	participants	coordinator
	jan
11	29	Ráckeve	24	Kitzinger János
12	30	Tököl (gazdakör)	18	Kitzinger János
	feb
13	5	Dömsöd	27	Kitzinger János
15	6	Kiskunlacháza	39	Kitzinger János
15	22	Galgahéviz	21	Erdész Feri
			129
		Total	385

Rooms and equipment used

· Gödöllo SzIE: Overhead projector, 24 Windows XP PCs, 2 Laptops, Internet connection

· Dabas: 2 Laptops, Overhead projector, PPT (offline)

· Kisnémedi: 2 Laptops, Overhead projector, PPT (offline)

· GAK TSzK: Overhead projector, 24 Windows XP PCs, 2 Laptops, Internet connection

· Ceglédbercel: 2 Laptops, Overhead projector, PPT (offline)

· Dabas: 2 Laptops, Overhead projector, PPT (offline)

· Cegléd: 2 Laptops, Overhead projector, PPT (offline)

· Bugyi: 2 Laptops, Overhead projector, PPT (offline)

· GAK TSzK: 2 Laptops, Overhead projector, PPT (offline)

· Bugyi: 2 Laptops, Overhead projector, PPT (offline)

· Ráckeve: 2 Laptops, Overhead projector, PPT (offline)

· Tököl: 2 Laptops, Overhead projector, PPT (offline)

· Dömsöd: 2 Laptops, Overhead projector, PPT (offline)

· Kiskunlacháza: 2 Laptops, Overhead projector, PPT (offline)

· Galgahéviz: 2 Laptops, Overhead projector, PPT (offline)

Detailed programme

Presentations about the project:

· Laszlo Papocsi: eFarmer project portal, eFarmer system:

ü Practical eSAPS 2006 software system presentation, with dedicated live connection to the RPA IACS system in Hungary.

ü User experiences and lessons learned from test operation of eSAPS 2006

ü Presentation on functional content services in the field of CAP and CoAP domain.

ü Introduction to the eFarmer Portal. User registration, login, concept of “Four step claim submission” workflow, testing several user scenarios.

ü Practical examples on eFarmer Portal, including the Query and Scheme Pop-Up modules.

· Laszlo Papocsi: eSAPS 2006 experiences and results, eSAPS 2007 lookout

· Csaba Pesti: eFarmer in the context of the new European Rural Development and Agriculture (ERDA) Fund.

· Krisztina Toth Impacts and opportunities of introducing the EU Farm Advisory System from 1 January 2007

Use of standalone computer/internet in daily work

Area of farmed land Interested to become registered on eFarmer portal

Feedback 1. Feedback 2.

RATE (1->5) Average	eContent module usefulness
4,54	Quality of translation
4,42	Scheme assistant
4,33	News
4,21	Legislation
4,21	Query
3,92	Scheme pop up menu
RATE (1->5) Average	Claim validation module
4,52	Usefulness in real work
4,33	Functions, edit, validate, print, etc.
4,13	Workflow structure and practical approach

RATE (1->5) Average	eLearning
4,48	Use of activities (test, path)
4,38	Use of eLearning modules (lesson,, glossary,...)
4,33	Quality of content
RATE (1->5) Average	General portal functions
4,65	Login, registration
4,30	FAQ
4,26	Contact
4,25	Others
4,17	Help
RATE (1->5) Average	Integration capabilities
4,37	Web services
3,95	RSS aggregation/ feed

3. Dissemination results from InfoDays in HU provided by KKVE

(Bisztray György WP5 Leader Kis- és Középvállalkozások Egyesülete, Hungaria)

KKVE

· EUFIT project (Preparation of SMEs for EU environment) results:

· Gather SMEs and Agrarians on one platform

· Find solutions for cooperation within:

o Food production market

o Usage of Agricultural goods in alternative energy sector.

Conclusion:

The eFarmer project brought Entrepreneurs and Agrarians together

3.1. Summary Report about EDC 11221 eFARMER project

· Info Events

· Info Days

· Hotlines,

· Call centre

· Follow ups
Organised by KKVE between:
January 2005 – February 2007

Partner Organisation:

· Letters of intent received

o MVH Rural Payment Agency

o MAGOSZ: popular association of agricultural cooperatives - 43000 members

3.2. Target Partners

· VIP list of the Ministry of Country Development and Agriculture (214): Multiple emails

· Agricultural Middle Schools (209): Multiple emails

· 12 Associations of Frost and Agricultural

· IPOSZ ( Association of small Handcrafts )

· MATISZ Union of Hungarian eContent Industry

· MAGOSZ-MAGOFON Ltd. 770 payer

3.3. Associations of Frost and Agriculture

Parasztszövetség	(Farmer Union)
AGRIA,	(Ass. of Youths in Agriculture)
Magánerdő Tulajdonosok	(Private forest owners)
Erdőgazdák	(Forest Farmers)
Magyar Kertészek	(Hungarian Gardner’s)
Biokultúra Közép MO-on	(Bio-Culture in Central H)
Középbirtokosok	(Middle land size Haves)
Hangya,	(Cooperatives Associations)
Mezőgadasági Társas Gazdálkodók Szövetsége (Union of Agricultural joint Farmers)

The Locations of the Events in Hungary

The Locations of the Events in Hungary

3.4. We have been in touch to …

· Personal contact and given lecture at all partner events in 2006.

· At our January Events 2005, 2006, 2007

· Lecture from planned work Mr. Pitlik SZIE

· Lecture from planned work Mr. Márai SZIE

· Lecture from planned work of KKVE by Bisztray

· Articles in Magazines, Radio-TV Reports

3.5. Results

Plan: win 840 eFarmers

· 3847 attendees at eFarmer Events

· 211 attendees at Pre Info Days before December 06.

· 689 attendees during Info Days within three Months

· 37 Hotline, worked 05 with 240 MePAR advisors

· 140 Call centre MAGOSZ-Magofon Ltd.

· Altogether 1087 eFarmers collected

· 14 eFarmers at the first follow-up conference

3.6. Follow up Questionnaires

· Questionnaires to obtain opinions and experiences with eSAPS and www.eFarmer.hu portal - sent to eFarmers:

1. Basic: eFarmer beginners

2. Advanced: more educated eFarmers

3. Expert: internet professionals

4. Countrywide network

3.7. Countrywide network

With the results of the Questionnaires

we will make a work plan with our

Partner Organisations up to 2010.

eFarmers - eAgrarians - eInnovations advisers

Farmers and entrepreneurs

Adviser network

4. Dissemination results from InfoDays in HU provided by KKVE

(Bisztray György WP5 Leader Kis- és Középvállalkozások Egyesülete, Hungaria elnok@kkve.hu)

Info Days - Main Guidelines

1. How - selection of participants

2. How - invitation of participants

3. Territorial covering

4. Detailed programme of the events

5. Questionnaires - nr of distributed, completed and returned questionnaires

6. Evaluate results from Questionnaires

7. Conclusion from the events, possible problems and potential deviations from the plan

8. Partners

4.1. How - selection of participants

Selection of participants (what were the criteria for invitation, how the invitation was realized, which target groups were selected)

· KRIR assumed reaching a minimum of 1000 participants – mainly farmers, advisors and persons interested in EU financial aid for rural areas info.

· KRIR organized a meeting among the directors of all voivoidship agricultural chambers to map their experiences.

· The plan was to organized approx. 35-40 events all over Poland to realize these guidelines.

The criteria of invitation were as follows:

· to have a status of a farmer or be a member of a farmer’s family,

· to be interested in getting any financial support for the development of agricultural holding (special by on-line advisory sources),

4.2. How - invitation of participants
(methods and channels used)

· Support of cooperating agro-media (“Wiadomości Rolnicze” and “Poradnik Rolniczy”) by advertisements and articles about the eFarmer Project and related activities within biggest nationwide magazines

· Support of regional agricultural chambers

· Support of cooperating agro-high schools and universities to distribute the information on planned Info Days (e.g. Małopolska Izba Rolnicza, Izba Rolnicza woj. Łódzkiego).

· Verbal invitations during agricultural events locally organized that time (e.g. agricultural fair, local agricultural chamber meetings, agricultural exhibitions)

· Portal www.efarmer.pl was also used as a channel to inform users about Info Days.

KRIR was also supported by the network of Agro Info, regional centers of European Information EUROPE DIRECT and Polsko-Amerykańska Fundacja Wolności (Polish and American Foundation of Liberty) – Program Wieś Aktywna (Acitve Country Programm)

4.3. Territorial coverage
(which regions were cover by the mentioned events)

Info Days were organised mainly in East and Central Poland in such voivodship as Łódzkie, Podlaskie, Mazowieckie, Kujawsko-Pomorskie and Świętokrzyskie.

4.4. Detailed programme of the events

Info Days (events for farmers)

· The eFarmer Project description presented by multimedia presentation

· Presentation of website www.efarmer.pl

· Discussion – answering questions

· Exercises

Workshops (events for eFarmers)

· Introduction of participants, presenters and workshop programme. Organizational issues. Collecting list of attendees.

· Project description, basic project information, list of main eFarmer system functionality, benefits for farmers.

· on-line eFarmer system presentation, functionality presentation.

· Possibility for system try-outs by attendees.

· Open discussion about the eFarmer system, attitude of attendees, recommended system improvement.

· Open discussion about the eFarmer system, attitude of attendees, recommended system improvement.

· Distributing questionnaires. Collecting feedback from Workshop.

· Closing evaluation. Recruitment of potential new eFarmers. Conclusion.

4.5. Questionnaires
- nr of distributed, completed & returned

During the Info Days the eFarmer team distributed 2770 and collected 1847 questionnaires what is 67% of the total number of distributed questionnaires within 12 of 16 regions in Poland.

No	Voivodships	%
1.	Kujawsko-Pomorskie	63
2.	łódzkie	71
3.	Małopolskie	53
4.	Mazowieckie	57
5.	Podlaskie	65
6.	Świętokrzyskie	70
7.	dolnośląskie	71
8.	lubuskie	80
9.	lubelskie	100
10.	podkarpackie	67
11.	śląskie	66
12.	wielkopolskie	68
	POLAND	67

The chart below shows the graphical composition of distributed and collected questionnaires for the individual voivodships.

4.6. Evaluate results from Questionnaires

The Questionnaire consists of 16 questions, judged in scale 1 – 5, where 1 was lowest and 5 was maximum grade.

· Evaluation of the General Outlook of the portal – 3,50

· Evaluation of the up-to-date information uploaded into “News” – 4,06

· Evaluation of up-to-date legal regulations uploaded into the portal – 4,20

· Evaluation of the method of CAP catalogs division – 4,18

· Evaluation of the clarity of Polish texts (translations) – 3,82

· Evaluation of the clarity of registering into the system – 3,35

· Evaluation of the clarity of comments used on the portal – 3,07

· Evaluation of the clarity of claim forms – 3,07

· Evaluation of the easiness of completing the forms – 3,24

· Evaluation of the easiness of repeated editing and saving the claim form - 3,05

· Evaluation of the easiness of the eLearning course content – 2,82

· Evaluation of the easiness of using the eLearning course – 2,65

· Evaluation of the easiness of searching CAP legislation – 2,37

4.7. Conclusion from the events,
problems and potential deviations from the plan

· Number of informed farmers – 1823 (planned 1000)

· Number of trained eFarmers – 280

· Number of selected eFarmers – 183 (planned 100)

· Number of distributed questionnaires – 2770

· Number of collected and analyzed questionnaires – 1823

Info Days planned in Wielkopolska regions were cancelled due to strikes organized by farmers fighting with the government for improved special services for their farms.

The targeted number of Info Days attendees was not achieved because of a too short time period for organizing these meetings with farmers taking into consideration that summer is a very busy work-season for them (e.g. harvest).

4.8. Partners

The following partners supported organizing Info Days:

· EUROPE DIRECT

· Polsko-Amerykańska Fundacja Wolności (Polish and American Foundation of Liberty) – Program Wieś Aktywna (Acitve Country Programm).

· „Wiadomości Rolnicze”

· “Poradnik Rolniczy”

· and several regional agricultrual chambers

5. Dissemination results from InfoDays in SK provided by SPPK/SAU

(Vladimíra Puškárová WP6 Leader Slovenská poľnohospodárska a potravinárska komora, Slovakia puskarova@sppk.sk)

InfoDays in Slovakia

· 18 Infodays (November 2006-January 2007)

· 21 regions :Nové Zámky, Dunajská Streda, Rimavská Sobota, Zvolen, Banská Bystrica, Liptovský Mikuláš, Trenčín, Bánovce nad Bebravou, Považská Bystrica, Bardejov, Rožňava, Galanta, Trnava, Partizánske, Senica, Čadca, Bratislava, Lučenec, Zlaté Moravce, Šaľa, Nitra

· total number of participants: 898

Farmers

· Selected from the members of the Slovak Agricultural and Food Chamber

· Invitation (programme and a short abbreviation of the eFarmer projects´ purpose)

ü sent via e-mail and post mail

· Criteria for invitation :

ü ownership of a land and/or animals and the application of experience from the previous year

InfoDays

· Informational leaflets:

ü Basic information, the main targets and benefits for the users,

ü Names of the eFarmers – advisors for Slovakia,

ü Contacts to the eFarmer portal, the Slovak Agricultural and Food Chamber and the SAU in Nitra

· Infodays Dissemination:

ü information on Infodays has been disseminated also on the web page of the Slovak Agricultural and Food Chamber

ü the exact dates and places of the events, number of participants, regions covered and presenters´ names are available in Annex No. 3 of the report on Infodays

During the InfoDays

The following information was presented:

· basic information on the project

· its goals, services and benefits

· internet portal options

· the application completion process

· the future perspectives

· the contacts of the 22 eFarmers – advisors in the regions of Slovakia

· continued discussions among the participants and presenter

· the events were done according to the plan and were quite successful in general

Questionnaire Evaluation „INFOday“ project eFarmer

9. Do you deem the main goals of the project as necessary and usable in praxis?

10. Have you been satisfied with the presentation of the services by the eFarmer advisor?

11. Is the structure of the portal www.eFarmer.sk easy to understand?

12. How do you evaluate the leaflets you have been provided with?

13. What further information should be added to the eFarmer portal? Please, note your other proposals, remarks or suggestions:Connection link to some interesting web pages on agriculture; Actual information on aid schemes on agriculture (payments options);

14. Do you know your nearest eFarmer advisor?

15. Would you use the services of the eFarmer advisor in the future?

Overall assessment:

· Question 1: Over two thirds of the participants deem the project goals as necessary and usable for their practice. The others are convinced of the project’s product and usefulness only partially.

· Question 2: The majority of the participants were satisfied with the presentation of the eFarmer services and portal.

· Question 3: Half of the attendees find the structure of the eFarmer portal easy to understand and 37 % as partially understandable.
More then once it was mentioned the portal was not clear and user friendly yet.

· Question 4: Almost half of the participants found the information leaflets good and a similar number rated them satisfactory.

· Question 5: (Open question) More participants asked for some interesting links to web pages with focus on agriculture. Also actual information on agricultural aid schemes were requested (payments options).

· Question 6: Almost all the attendees know the eFarmer advisor at the disposal in their own region. The contacts are also available on the Slovak Agriculture and Food Chamber web site.

· Question 7: Over two thirds of participants would use the services of the eFarmer advisor in the future. Nearly one quarter of participants is not sure for now. Only 9.7 % is not planning to use these services.

Conclusion

Infodays in Slovakia were successfully performed, the participants were satisfied with the presentation and the information gained in general. There is still a need to improve the eFarmer portal to become more users friendly and loaded with actual information. The eFarmer advisors are well-known and located near to the farmers. Farmers in Slovakia wish to use the eFarmer services in the future. This interest was confirmed in their answers.

6. Dissemination results from InfoDays in CZ provided by AKCR/MZLU

(Pavel Máchal Mendelova zemědělská a lesnická univerzita, Czech Republic pmachal@mendelu.cz)

When the eFarmer project software was finalized and fully tested, the AKCR and MZLU carried out detailed face to face training of future eFarmers and started design and implementation of promotional regional info days.

Prior to this, information leaflets about the project results and services were designed, printed and distributed, using various channels such as AKCR meetings, personal support and reference marketing, networking with regional information centres (KIS), targeted mailing, training events and similar.

The leaflets were also distributed during the info days. It is to be noted that next to these activities also the promotion in media (largest daily Právo and specialized weekly Zemědělec/Farmer) was launched, however the timing of the promotional agency was premature and poorly managed by a centrally selected promotional agency in Košice.

Based on the positive experience with the managers of regional / district offices of AKCR as pilot eFarmers, the AKCR decided to select managers of AKCR district offices and key representatives of associated communities to be fully acquainted with the project to ensure broadest impact possible.

These people form the backbone of the AKCR structure of qualified human resources and are in everyday touch with farmers and their majority are Ministry of Agriculture certified advisers. Therefore they also created the nucleus of invitees for the info days.

The info days were launched during the last phase of the project, i.e. from end of August 2006 though November 2006, at the time, when the harvest season was practically over and the farmers had time to attend the planned events.

In total 9 promotional info days were designed and executed by AKCR and MZLU with the objective to generate effective demand for eFarmer advisory services and/or to make popular the use of Internet portal by the farmers, to acquire the market and CAP information, up to date news and event schedules, etc. including the future possibility of effective integration with local eGovernment.

The information days venues were organized in a uniform manner to cover all regions of the country. In total about 900 participants were trained (in detail, the exact numbers are 71 eFarmers and 896 farmers, respectively).

During the info days the farmers were explained the eFarmer project objectives and advantages the project brings to the farmer communities and the countryside (rural development), references, where they can obtain, in case of their interest, additional information, the functions of the web portal and similar.

Info Days were held nine times as given below:

16. 29.8.2006 – České Budějovice, 81 participants

17. 12.10.2006 – Prostějov, 48 participants

18. 16.10.2006 – Plzeň, 106 participants

19. 19.10.2006 – Most, 72 participants

20. 25.10.2006 – Opava, 33 participants

21. 27.10.2006 – Hodkovice, 34 participants

22. 16.11.2006 - Větrný Jeníkov, 261 participants

23. 22.11.2006 – Chrudim, 148 participants

24. 23.11.2006 – Vísky u Blanska, 72 participants

Total attendance: 855 participants

Usual agenda of Info Days was as follows:

12.00 - 13.00	Opening address and introductory information about of the eFarmer project
13.00 –13.30	Achieved outcomes of the project with illustrative examples
13.30 –14.30	Introduction and handling of the current eFarmer portal
14.30 –15.30	Services for farmers, role of eFarmers, eLearning – content, available resources of information
15.30 –16.00	Practical examples how to complete SAPS claims, how to fill data of the applicant into the database, future developments and services
16.30	Conclusions and closing

Open discussion was part of each item of the agenda.

Info days were executed by Ms. Soňa Berecova and Ms. Jaroslava Nekvasilova on behalf of the Czech Agrarian Chamber and by Dr. Havlíček of MZLU Brno.

Before the concluding part of the programme, the participants received questionnaires regarding their opinion on the project, how the services of the eFarmer advisers may be utilized, quality of the delivered information and the information on the web portal, evaluation of the speakers, quality of provided documents, organisation of the event proposed possible improvements and comments by the end-users.

To summarize, the response was very satisfactory. The survey also revealed a number of problems that the eFarmer project management should solve in order to ensure that the project results are sustainable, in particular the vague character and uncertainity of the partnership programme, business model for portal operations, e-contents update, availability of technical equipment for field advisory service (i.e. notebook, printer, mobile internet linkage, etc.) the costs to be charged for advisory services, revenue to be gained by the eFarmers to keep them interested and motivated, advantages of eFarmer portal as compared to other agricultural information portals available in the country, disadvantages vis-a-vis the operation of well functioning traditional regional information centres (KIS), RPA services and some others.

These lessons learned from the workshop discussion are of serious importance and all questions should be clarified if the project is to become sustainable and money invested into the project development and implementation to be recovered by all partners involved, as well as by the Community, with essential benefits to the target group of end-users - the farmers, i.e. mainly the farmers owning smaller agricultural holdings, working with their families, who have less time at their disposal for SAPS claim submission than the large agricultural land owners and companies estates.

VIII. Summary

(Attila Tóth, PhD.: eFarmer project director Novitech Plc, Slovakia)

1. Horizontal Summary

1. The project still significantly contributes to the objectives of the eContent programme: pan European content service with accelerating volume and needs

2. State of the Art work, in terms of the service: unique on the EU market in terms of content preference matching and customization flexibility of the service regarding EU subsidies, domains and languages

3. State of the Art work, in terms of technology: use of the latest Microsoft .Net technology

4. The core objectives (CAP content service) are met and in certain aspects even superseded. Use of the content for automatic claim submission – is partially met.

5. Definite plans for exploitation of results

6. Cost effective balance between the work done and the financial investment in the project

2. Service Attributes

1. The service continuously reflects the evolving user needs of CAP content market i.e. the core objective of the project. Furthermore the service is ready for extension to other EU subsidy schemes (Rural development, etc.)

2. The intellectual property rights of the service are resolved in the Consortium Agreement

3. The sustainability of the service is ensured by detailed business and marketing plans with detailed follow-up actions.

4. The technical merit and soundness of the approach is justified by the growing number of eFarmers registering into the system in the V4 EU countries. Access to the use of the service was enhanced by introducing the guided tour portal function in 01/2007 in 4 languages and in English

3. Current Project Status

25. The content service is operational in all 4 Countries. Thus far 4100 users registered

26. The content is updated for the current 2007 SAPS claim schemes in 2 countries (legislation and applicable claim forms)

27. The service is operational in multilingual modes: English, Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, Polish

28. The service is hosted by Novitech Data Centre.

29. The operations hot-line is provided to all consortium partners by the Novitech SW Development Team.

30. National help-desk services for eFarmers are provided by:

31. KRIR – for Poland, MZLU - for Czech Republic, SZIE - for Hungary and SAU - for Slovakia

32. The on-line claim submission is operational in Hungary

4. Exploitation potential

33. Extension of the service inside V4 countries:

o Additional CAP schemes (like Farm Advisory Services)

o Rural development

o Environmental grants

o Grants for farming SMEs

34. Extension of the service to other EU members states

o Potential targets: Romania, Bulgaria

35. Extension of the service to further EU member states

Demand for EU subsidy and grant content services is growing rapidly. Growth can be slowed down in some countries (but not stopped) by the passive transposition of the PSI Re-use directive in certain EU member states.

5. Management Lessons Learned

36. The eContent project is a business project targeting defined business objectives

37. Project coordination and management model of the Programme provide little room to manage the project in a business-oriented way. The coordinator has imited rights to impose project discipline required for this type of project.

38. The consortium was composed of partners with different project management experience and cultures. Harmonization of these cultures took more time than foreseen at the beginning of the project

39. The stabilizing role of the Project Officer: his steady support, readiness and patience to advise about aspects new for the Consortium – thank you Mr. Ray Hudson !

A.1.6. ISP-ABILITY

1. What kind of support was the tender completed? (EU support + national support)

EU support only, project-type/number: IST-FP6-027306

2. Title of the tender, its duration, rate of support

Full name: Application Bus for InteroperabiLITy In enlarged Europe SMEs

Short name: ABILITIES

Duration: 24 Months (Start date: 2006.01.01; End date: 2007.12.31.)

Rate of support: total: € 2.982.429 (EU funding: € 2.018.894, own funding: € 963.535)

3. Summary

The basic goal of the ABILITIES (Application Bus for InteroperabiLITy In enlarged Europe SMEs) project is to study, design and develop a federated architecture implemented by a set of intelligent and adaptive UBL active messages (an Application Bus for EAI) and basic interoperability services, which aims at supporting SMEs EAI in e-commerce contexts, specifically in less developed Countries and less RTD intensive industrial sectors.

4. Aim

In particular, ABILITIES will address three research streams:

1. Orientation towards Enlarged Europe SMEs: starting from OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) UBL 1.0 specifications (Universal Business Language), defining a generic XML interchange format for business documents to support a typical order-to-invoice procurement cycle, ABILITIES will make UBL suitable for Enlarged Europe industrial SMEs and will change, extend, and adapt UBL where necessary for this purpose;
2. Federated Architecture and Intelligent Business Documents: provide support for the architecture that ISO 14258 (International Standard prepared by Technical Committee 184) identifies as federated (on-the-fly reconciliation and mapping negotiation, as no reference meta-model can be developed), the most advanced and sophisticated solution from the ICT viewpoint, suitable for the less structured and advanced industrial cases, sectors and domains. Also in the presence of a reference meta-model for order-to-invoice business documents (UBL), ABILITIES will experiment an innovative blended architecture which could join the peculiar advantages of message-based Service Oriented Architectures and Intelligent Multi-Agent Systems, in a context where business documents become intelligent, interactive and multi-media objects;
3. Service Orchestration and Business Process support: Study and provide reconciliation between research and standards in business documents and research and standards in business process management;

In addition, ABILITIES will test and validate such technologies in real-life SMEs-driven business scenarios located in New Member States and implement:

· Collaborative business and co-operative work scenarios for small entrepreneurs (Retail and Tourism) in Lithuania;

· Business process development and interconnection for High-Tech SMEs in Slovakia;

· Mobile and ubiquitous work support in multi-customer distribution Agro-food SMEs networks in Turkey;

· XML-based interactive and adaptive e-business Document exchange (MODA-ML) for the Textile-Clothing SMEs supply chain in Romania;

· Semantic content reconciliation for Tourism SMEs in Hungary;

5. Participants

· TXT e-Solutions SpA (TXT), Italy

· Fraunhofer Gesellschaft (FhG-IPA), Germany

· Frankfurt am Main University (FRANK), Germany

· Kaunas University of Technology (KTU), Lithuania

· Kosice Technical University (TUKE), Slovakia

· Middle East Technical University Ankara (METU), Turkey

· Computer and Automation Research Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA SZTAKI), Hungary

· Kaunas Regional Association of SMEs (KRASME), Lithuania

· Cassovia Business & Innovation Center (CASSOVIA), Slovakia

· INNOVA IT Solutions (INNOVA), Turkey

· S.C. FILBAC (FILBAC), Romania

· Hungarian Association of Content Industry (MATISZ), Hungary

6. Target group (proportion of sex, if possible)

· small entrepreneurs (Retail and Tourism) in Lithuania;

· High-Tech SMEs in Slovakia;

· Agro-food SMEs networks in Turkey;

· Textile-Clothing SMEs supply chain in Romania;

· Tourism SMEs in Hungary.

7. Experience

According to the 4th and Final Review held on he 28th February 2008 in Kosice, here is the conclusion of the Project Reviewers:

8. Type of dissemination, any other application of the results

See answer on question ’7. Experience’. Dissemination was done on numerous events, brochures, also in newsletters and on web pages, like the project homepage (http://services.txt.it/abilities/) and on partner’s homepages as well (e.g. www.matisz.hu/Abilities.147.0.html)

9. Evaluation of the results achieved by the project

See answer on question ’7. Experience’.

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[1] SAPARD (Special Accession Program for Agriculture and Rural Development)