THE AGRICULTURAL ADVISORY SERVICES AND AKIS SYSTEMS IN ESTONIA, LITHUANIA AND LATVIA – THE COMPARISON STUDY

Abstract

The paper based on the results of survey, which have been done under EU project titled „Prospects for Farmers’ Support Advisory Services in European AKIS (PRO AKIS)”, carried under FP7 in 27 EU countries. The paper contains the analysis of AKIS systems in three European Countries – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The discussed subject is the comparison study of the chosen results of survey of agriculture, the history of creation the agricultural advisory system, and the structures of agricultural advisory and systems of knowledge, information and innovation flows. The analysed three Baltic countries, in spite of nearly half century of their links by common history and central command of economy policy, after regaining independence, they chosen individual ways to build the AKIS structures. In these processes they used patterns taken from some Western Europe countries, and reached different results. In Estonia, at the moment the AKIS structure is under discussion, because the linkages between AKIS actors are still weak. In Latvia the question is the influence inside AKIS system of three policies – for agriculture, for education and for science – giving as a result the weak cooperation between AKIS actors. In Lithuania, according experts opinion, the AKIS system is working well, and the linkages and cooperation between AKIS actors are rather good. The general conclusion of discussed subject is, that AKIS system in term of its organisation and structure, is working well only under condition, that the linkages and cooperation between its actors are very strong and integrated.

Keywords: advisory services, agricultural advisory, AKIS system.

Article DOI: http://doi.org/10.15544/RD.2015.089