The two-day Policy Roundtable in Poland was divided into two main modules:
The 1st module was ‘Welcome & ice breaking’ with a two-hour Lego Serious Play session.
The LEGO Serious Play (LSP) game was conducted and led by Tomasz Włoszczowski (SIE). The purposes of using LSP at the workshop were to test the method learned during the implementation of the BOND project, to build openness and trust among workshop participants and to raise the level of communication between them. The LSP was used at the beginning of the Policy Roundtable as an ice-breaker, to prepare the ground for subsequent sessions, where group work and reaching an agreement on the final policy recommendations would be important.
The final results of the Policy Roundtable (PRT) are 22 recommendations on the national level and 5 recommendations on the European level:
- Exchange of knowledge on seed production
- Support farmers’ associations to register as operators for plant passports
- Alliance or memorandum of understanding (MOU) on making organic seeds available on the market (example: in Poland only 30% available)
- Activate farmers to build a link between farms and consumers
- Farmer’s model of low-cost seed production – bond collective seeds initiative
- Support for creating a peasant seed system
- Linking farm to fork, collect information and connect
- React to / comment on new organic law regulation 2018/848 – creating a working group open to other stakeholders
- Financial support for farmers’ organic seeds production
- Trainings for consumers about organic farmers work, creating networks between consumers and farmers
- Protect and enable peasant seed system
- Clear and stable rules / laws on organic farming
- Better support in education from public sector institutions
- Open community seeds banks to allow farmers to exchange seeds
- Provision of incentives to farmers to start working with seeds
- Creation of a working group who can react to law reg. 2018/848 and seeds law acts
- Provision of support to the creation of new forms of collective action for provision of advisory services
- Local groups of farmers and consumers in cooperation with experts (on seeds as well)
- Creation a network at national level and bond for a purpose to produce and consume good quality organic food
- Create/ strengthen networks of seeds producers at national and regional level
- The state should delegate and support the task of advisory services (on seeds, organic production) to association of farmers
- Each European country should establish a political party / pressure group of interest that would advocate for these issues.
On European level:
- Creation of a database on seeds at EU level
- Diverse commercial seed market
- Financial support for farmers’ organic seeds production
- Creation of a working group who can react to law Reg. 2018/848 and seeds law acts
Clear and stable rules / laws on organic farming.
The Training of Trainers (ToT) on ‘Farmer empowerment through the creation of social capital’ was carried out in Trebki Nowe, Poland, 2-3 December 2019 and preceded the Policy Roundtable.
The ToT design and implementation was led by FAO. The training was attended by 10 BOND representatives (4 men and 6 women), 5 new representatives and 5 part of the initial BOND representatives group belonging to 6 countries (Greece, Serbia, Albania, Macedonia, Bulgaria and Poland) and included farmer leaders, extension officers, one expert in community and farmer mobilisation, researchers in extension.
The overall objective of the ToT was to empower farmer leaders and managers to advance the effectiveness of their organisations through social capital.
The specific learning objectives of the one and a half days training programme allowed participants to: reflect and engage in discussions on values and principles for farmer organisations, acquire knowledge on the role of a leader, understand the importance of building a shared vision, understand the organisation as a complex system, balancing people, objectives and group processes, analyse organisational performance, identify its strengths and weaknesses in relation to its mission, formulate strategies and an Action Plan.
Participants analysed the dimensions of organisational performance and collectively formulated strategies to strengthen the performance of a hypothetical organisation to practice the methodological framework.
They also developed their own individual action plans to apply the acquired knowledge and disseminate it in their own country. In doing so, participants also help to catalyse and support the potential for networking and improved performance within their own organisations and communities.