Rural Cooperation in the 21st Century Presentations

31 August 2012
Type Event Proceeding

Presentations from the Rural Cooperation in the 21st Century: Unique Opportunities for Farm Families Conference which took place in Brooklodge, Macreddin Village, Wicklow on Friday 31 August 2012

Overview:

There is growing demand for authentic family farm food with a ‘clean, green’ image. Farmers can avail of this market opportunity by selling their products directly to retailers and consumers and retaining a larger margin with higher profits. However a supportive and regulative framework is required to serve the needs and interests of both farmers and consumers and to achieve market success.

Following on from the TASTE Council Summer School which focuses on certification and branding frameworks, this conference focused on cooperative approaches to meet the practical needs of farmers in bringing food products directly to consumers.

Full-time farmers can experience challenges in fulfilling the range of branding, processing, marketing, sales and distribution activities required to make their business a success. This conference presented a model, originally developed in the US that addresses some of these challenges.

The “Agriculture of the Middle” model recognises the need to maintain traditional family-operated farms to protect localized farming knowledge and for reasons of social, cultural and environmental sustainability. It is argued that traditional produce that has an authentic Irish ‘family farm’ brand is increasingly sought by socially and environmentally aware consumers. Democratic cooperative and partnership approaches that are used in the “Agriculture of the Middle” model to assist farmers to become more profitable while also meeting challenges in branding, marketing and retailing are explained.

The conference featured three speakers from the US who pioneered the “Agriculture of the Middle Model”. The aim of the conference was to explore and debate how the model could potentially be adapted to the Irish context to benefit farmers and consumers alike.

Pre-Conference Workshop

Demystifying Alternative Food Production and Marketing Systems (PDF, 5.1MB)

Larry Lev, Oregan State University

Lunchtime Posters

Sustainably Competitive Agriculture(PDF, 1.7MB)

Prof. Liam Downey & Dr. Gordon Purvis, UCD

Connemara Hill Lamb (PDF 1.6MB)

Ring of Kerry Lamb (PDF, 1.5MB)

An installation of images and words by Deirdre O'Mahony (GMIT) that reflects the landscapes and cultures sustaining Irish producer groups and their food products