AGROSMARTglobal

AGROSMARTglobal is a 3.5 year EU co-funded project that started in October 2019.

The AGROSMARTglobal project “Space for the competitiveness, promotion and intelligent international expansion of agri-food cooperatives in the Sudoe rural areas” is co-funded by the Interreg Sudoe Programme 2014-2020 under Priority Axis 2: Stimulating the competitiveness and internationalisation of SMEs in South-West Europe.

Its main objective is to consolidate the space for promotion, intercooperation and competitiveness of agri-food cooperatives in South-West Europe (Sudoe) by developing advanced support tools and services to strengthen their positioning and international expansion through the implementation of digital marketing strategies focused on interenterprise cooperation.

The project covers 10 regions of the Sudoe: Galicia, Castilla-La Mancha, Euskadi and La Rioja in Spain, Norte, Algarve, Centro, Lisboa and Alentejo in Portugal, and Nouvelle-Aquitaine in France. It aims to alleviate the difficulties faced by the rural areas in the Sudoe and to promote their economic development and cohesion through the research of efficient transnational solutions to support the competitiveness of agri-food cooperatives by creating and consolidating networks and services to support their internationalisation.

Specific objectives

1. Support the digital internationalisation of agri-food cooperatives in the Sudoe, taking advantage of new technologies and the evolution of e-commerce at international level;
2. Promote and protect the quality and origin agri-food products of the Sudoe cooperatives on the international digital market, building on their endogenous character, with particular emphasis on geographical indications (PDOs and PGIs);
3. Strengthen the association of the Sudoe agri-food cooperative network and the creation of alliances with professionals in the target market in order to facilitate the promotion and international expansion of agri-food cooperatives through interenterprise cooperation.

Budget

The AGROSMARTglobal project has a total budget of €1,598,000.00, 75% of which is co-funded by the ERDF (European Regional Development Fund).

Duration of the project

42 months, from October 1, 2019 until March 31, 2023.

Role of AREPO

AREPO’s main mission is to develop a “best practice” guide for GI consortia, producer associations and agri-food cooperatives in the EU, which would aim to:

1. Improve their knowledge on how to promote their products that benefit from EU quality schemes (PDOs, PGIs, TSGs and organic farming) on the Internet, to take better advantage of their added value on international digital markets;
2. Provide them with operational tools to protect their geographical indications (GIs) on the Internet. To date, there is no strong protection for GIs with regard to the allocation of domain names. Their protection is now threatened by the new approach proposed by ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers). The fight against Internet fraud is essential to protect the rights of producers and consumers.

AREPO will also have a key role in disseminating the project’s results.

To find out more about the project, please consult the dedicated website.