RUBIZMO Café Talk Cycle #01-2 - New rural development opportunities: food & renewable energy
Channel: Rubizmo Rural Business Models
Date: 05/02/2021

This inspirational Café Talk of Prof. Dr. Gerhard Schiefer from the Food Chain Management company proQuantis highlights to get prepared for a rural century!
The session was part of the first live RUBIZMO Café Talk Cycle taking part in November 2020. Follow the Playlist "How Europe can anticipate and support rural innovation". 
After the 15min. presentation Prof. Schiefer was answering all questions of the audience:

Q: You have shown that things were happening in 2007/18 and the only thing we learnt from history is that we don't learn from history. How will things change? 
A: In my opinion policy actors will react better if entrepreneurs are actively engaged. Looking at start-ups in my country (Germany) we can see that start-ups often move to the urban centers because that's where the finance is which is a problem for rural areas. In the other hand, there are some examples of small companies and start-ups moving to rural areas because office space is cheaper and there are more space and resources to be used but this is nothing happening on the larger scale and in a joint effort. 
Q: Do you have any more interesting examples from the RUBIZMO project to highlight? 
A: Indeed there are many examples even outside of the project. There is  much work going on for instance to develop chemicals and vitamins to be extracted from waste. There is a tremendous source of opportunity with new technologies and it is a matter of getting research and companies to work together to make it come true. However, research and companies will need support from the outside in this journey (policy support, finance, infrastructure).  
Question: There are examples of companies developing products or services that are not yet allowed in the market, for example products from insects. There is a case like this that has been studied where the policy framework is not adapted to their production. Can you tell a little bit more on this process. 
Answer: There is no common policy in Europe yet on this matter. This lack of common understanding and lack of regulation hinders not only the insect sector but all the innovative industry and companies to flourish in Europe.  
Q: In Ireland, this year has been a rural year. With the Covid crisis and more people working from home and staying in the countryside. Do you think that this trend will last after the crisis - in other words are we going to see a break in the urbanization trend? 
A: I think it will last. Easier to network and meet digitally. From an economic perspective it's also interesting as the employer to have your staff working from home as you need less costs to provide offices. This concept of office sharing was already used by some companies when the employees were mostly working outside and meeting customers and didn't need to stay at an office all the time and this will become more and more common in the future I believe.  
Q: Will the trend caused by the health crisis last? (working from home, move to rural areas) 
A: 100% YES (according to the participants) 
Q: Rural areas are diverse in Europe. Do you think your approach applies to the diversity of rural areas and could you tell us a bit more on this? 
A: The approach focuses on three different type of possibilities to move forward: eliminating deficiencies, exploiting strengths and investigating new opportunities. This could apply to different regions giving different type of deficiencies and different type of opportunities. You could also focus on only one of the three strategies. And the question is what combination fits best my region. 
Q: In Ireland we have been focusing on supporting smaller actors and entrepreneurs that want to establish in a rural environment using the principles of team entrepreneurship developed in Finland, do you have any reflection on this?
A: We often focus on the wrong actor and innovation doesn't only come from big companies indeed it mostly emerges from start-ups & smaller companies which then get bought and owned by bigger groups that exploit and upscale their innovation. But the effort should be to put on smaller companies and entrepreneurs to ensure that they can develop their ideas in the rural context. However, the entrepreneurs should be given the support from the policy actors and other regional actors. 
Q: We observe some trends with increasing dynamics with actors from urban area getting active in rural areas. How could we exploit this trend? 
A: One of the developments is the new technologies that eliminate some of the deficiencies in rural areas, especially around information and communication. Another development we see is that the attractiveness of urban areas is decreasing and the quality of life for instance air quality in rural areas being much more valued. Some of this young companies are still close to the urban centers. What we see from this crisis is that we are still unable to offer the same quality of service when it comes to information and communication in rural areas.