📋 Tender Overview
Contract partner: Working group - Balkan Express Handels GmbH (BioBalkan)
Country: Europe, regional/cross-border Funding amount: € 300.000,00 Project start: 01.11.2024 End: 30.09.2027
SHORT DESCRIPTION:
Overall goal
The project aims to strengthen the value chain initiated by BioBalkan by increasing the suppliers resilience to climate change, enhancing their production capacities and productivity, and boosting the demand for their products.
Expected results
The project aims to achieve the following by September 2027:
- Increase the area for regenerative agriculture from 0 hectares to 8 hectares.
- Increase the installed capacity of renewable energy from 40 kWp to 120 kWp.
- Expand primary production capacities from 68 to 90 tons per year.
- Significantly improve the key performance indicators of the company.
The project will directly benefit 7 local companies in Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, and Serbia, 53 small farming families, and create new full-time equivalent jobs for 12 individuals.
Target group / Beneficiaries
Target groups: The target groups include field and processing workers of all ages. In Serbia, for example, the focus of Radanska Ru a is on employing women with disabilities, single mothers, and long-term unemployed women.
Local partners: BioBalkan currently works with a total of 7 local companies. Three of them are direct suppliers of BioBalkan (EkoLife, Nelkoski Organic, Radanska Ru a), while the remaining four (Ru ina Basta, Optimist, Prva Organska Zadruga, Eko Leshnik) deliver semi-processed goods to the direct suppliers of BioBalkan. All seven companies organize local networks of organic farmers and process their products according to BioBalkan's traditional methods and specifications as well as EU organic standards. The three direct suppliers also handle bottling, labeling, and packaging.
Activities
A total of 4 work packages are planned to be implemented by the project's completion:
1. Enhancing resilience through innovative agricultural methods such as regenerative agriculture and agroforestry
2. Tapping into the potential of renewable energy and increasing energy efficiency through the installation of photovoltaic systems
3. Strengthening cultivation and processing capacities (equipment and machinery, and automisation and digitisation)
4. Enhancing the value chain by improving marketing efforts
Context
BioBalkan was founded in 2018 to source and market organic products in the Balkans, aiming to improve small farmers' livelihoods through European organic standards.
Recently, BioBalkan and its partners have faced significant climate change impacts: storms and hail have damaged greenhouses and crops, pests have devastated nut plantations, frosts have threatened yearly yields, and water supply has become scarce. The inner Balkans are particularly vulnerable to these environmental changes.
Following a successful ADA-supported project in 2020 that established organic a
