STIMULATING INNOVATIVENESS IN RURAL AREAS AS PART OF THE “COOPERATION” MEASURE WITH THE ANCIENT GRAIN OPERATIONAL GROUP – A CASE STUDY

The article aims at a preliminary evaluation of the performance of the “Cooperation” measure as part of PROW 2014-2020 which is to support innovativeness in the agri-food sector by accelerating the transfer of knowledge from scientific research institutions and the cooperation of farmers with consulting institutions, entrepreneurs and various social partners. Rural areas in Poland are a place of abode of a large part of society and agriculture is an important sector of the national economy. A serious problem of many agricultural family farms in Poland is low competitiveness on the international market of agricultural producers. It comes from e.g. no possibility of competing with large-size farms, which can benefit from the effect of the scale of production and which, frequently, enjoy better access to consulting, market and process information. The response to these problems can be provided by integration (horizontal and vertical) and triggering the innovativeness processes throughout the agribusiness sector. Two application acceptance dates, so far, addressed at Operational Groups have shown great innovative potential of Polish agriculture and a growing interest of scientists and entrepreneurs in innovations. A perfect example of such an Operational Group EPI is Ancient Grain, where innovation is a response to market needs and is to support food quality enhancement by optimising crop technology, processing and effective marketing. The aim of the operation is to launch the cultivation of original forms of wheat cultivars (Indian dwarf wheat and Persian wheat) with a higher nutritional value. The preliminary research results confirm that such wheat forms show a high content of macro- and microelements as well as essential amino acids and that consumers demonstrate much interest in the foodstuff to be developed based on these wheat forms.