The final conference of the project “Agriculture Forecast-Reporting System (AFRS) in Cross-border Region” was held on Friday, 23rd May 2014, in the great conference hall of the City of Užice.

Agriculture Extension Services Užice in cooperation with the Federal Institute of Agriculture and with the support of the Regional Development Agency Zlatibor and Sarajevo Regional Development Agency implemented projects with a total value of 300,000 euros, which was co-financed by the European Union under the second Call for Proposals IPA Cross-border Cooperation Programme Serbia – Bosnia and Herzegovina.

During the 15 months of the project implementation, an innovative concept of integrated agricultural production based on information technologies for forecasting and reporting farmers about meteorological was established.

Within this project, 20 weather stations had been purchased and installed in 8 municipalities in Serbia (Bajina Bašta, Kosjeri?, Nova Varoš, Požega, Priboj, Prijepolje, ?ajetina and Užice) and 15 stations in 8 municipalities in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Goražde, Olovo, Vogoš?a, Pale-Pra?a, Ilijaš, Ilidža, Fo?a-Ustikolina and Fojnica), also software for data processing and reporting to farmers by text messages was developed. In this way, farmers receive information free of charge with the recommendations for timely application of plant protective chemicals, which results in production improvement, cost reduction and healthy products. There are 250 users so far and new farmers can be added to farmers database.

Project has provided transfer of experience and best practices in applying forecast-reporting systems from the EU countries and raised producers` awareness about AFR system through a series of lectures.

Conference participants had been addressed by: Mr. Miroslav Milivojevi?, director of Agriculture Extension Service Užice, Mr. Slavko Luki?, director of the Regional Development Agency Zlatibor and Mr. Samir ?amdžija, Assistant manager in the Federal Institute for Agriculture Sarajevo; Vladislav Vlaji?, task manager in Joint Technical Secretariat.

Project results and importance of AFRS were presented to audience by: Mrs. Bojana Neši?, Project Manager and Mr. Milenko Gavrilovi?, consultant in Agriculture Extension Services Užice and Assistant for communication with farmers.

The project team would like to thank all participants for taking active role in project activities: colleagues from the Agriculture Extension Services Užice and Federal Institute for Agriculture Sarajevo, collaborator from the Regional Development Agency Zlatibor and Sarajevo Regional Development Agency, employees in Agriculture Departments and Local Self Governments, media, donors and the Joint Technical Secretariat  for advisory support.

Following documents can be downloaded:

Project Manager presentation Communication Assistant presentation, Project Coordinator presentation.

Also, audio and video files can be found her? and here.

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