IMPRESSIONS
ABOUT AGROLIB PROJECT
I am Miroslav
Cvijetic, an agronomy engineer
and my position is
the advisor to the Jagodina Mayor, regarding agriculture.
I would like
to point out that I had the honor and privilege, being the participant in the
AgroLib project, to visit Washington DC and participate in the Beyond Access
Conference in October 2012.
As the most
qualified person in the management of the town of Jagodina, I have been following the work of
the AgroLib project and I want to express my positive impressions.
The
AgroLib project, is getting more and more appreciated by a great number of
farmers. The project presentations are more expanded and visited thanks to the
quality speakers and well-chosen topics that are in accordance with the needs
of the participants.
I noticed that farmers are
starting to get to know each other, discuss, share their experiences and pass their
knowledge on other participants.
An interesting
example is the following case-at one of the AgroLib lectures, two farmers met.
One of them shared his experience in the production of rose hip (rose haw).
This is a very rare type of agricultural production and I did not know that
somebody actually grew this fruit near Jagodina. The other farmer said that he
wanted to start growing it, but did not know what the production technology was
like.
This situation
would not be strange if these two farmers were not from the same village and
knew each other, but did not have the slightest idea what the other one was
engaged in regarding rose hip production.
I have to say
that as an agricultural expert, and visitor of all AgroLib activities, I remembered
some things I forgot, but also learned new things especially from leading
agricultural producers.
I will mention
the lectures on blueberries.
I did learn
about this fruit during my university education from 1986-1991, but this fruit
and its production was not popular and my knowledge was not sufficient. USA as
a leading producer of the Northern highbush blueberry, exports the seedlings
and in the 2000’s there is a real expansion of blueberry production.
One of the AgroLib lecturers Ivan
Djuknic is a leading expert in the field of blueberry producer in Serbia and exporter
and distribution of the Northern highbush blueberry seedlings. He often visits
the USA producers and shares the experience with other interested blueberry
producers, but also with the experts for fruit growing who did not have a
chance to learn more about this new fruit crop.
The town of Jagodina have been helping the AgroLib
project activities in order to develop not only librarian ship but also all
areas of the economy-in this case agriculture as the focus of AgroLib program.
There is an open village library in Majur. The town of
Jagodina provided space, renovation and interior decoration and the Library
provided equipment-computers, the Internet, books and journals.
The results of
this co-operation is a modern village library with appreciable number of books and
journals, a skilled librarian and space that can be used for lectures, meetings
and trainings of farmers.
The proof that this cooperation is successful is the
need to extend library working hours and increase the number of staff.
Our participation at Beyond Access Conference , encouraged
other libraries in Serbia and local governments to get interested in this project
with modifications specific to their needs. (Visit to local government in
Pancevo).
Also,those who participate in the project, started solving problems and recognizing needs of farmers in a serious manner.
For me personally, this is a great experience and I
hope that the cooperation with Beyond Access will continue in the future.
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