News » Interview: "Interreg projects can push into the right direction"

As an expert in the agro-food sector, what is your mission?

Henning Foged: The red thread in mywork is EU agro-food sector policies, not least the part dealing with environmental regulation, for example the management of manure and nutrients. And the main purpose of my work has been and is to improve resource economy to the benefit of farming business, while at the same time reducing negative impacts of farming on the water quality, on theair quality, on the environment and climate in general.

What has been your role in Interreg projects?

Henning Foged: In the Interregprojects, it has been my role to lead work packages concerning policies, investments and market analyses within the area of innovative agro-environmental technologies.

For example, in BalticCOMPASS,we had a large pot to invest into innovative technologies that reducethe loss of nutrients from the farms to the Baltic Sea. I had visitedthe Netherlands and the United States where I got a lot of ideas I fedinto the project. In my work package, I helped implement investmentsinto new technologies in Latvia, Belarus and Denmark. And we jointlyidentified the three best technologies to do so, namely; producingbiogas from livestock manure and other wastes; separating slurry toenable a more balanced fertilisation with nitrogen and phosphorus on thefields; and SCIEN drainage, which is a specific approach to drainingfields in smart ways without losing the nutrients.

Now, working in the SuMaNuplatform, it is my task to identify the mechanisms that make Interregprojects succeed or not in terms of delivering results that areimplemented in policies and taken up by end-users.

What has been the positive impact of these Interreg projects over the years on the Baltic Sea?

Henning Foged: Well, there are noquick effects when you are talking about changes of the environment. Youcan spoil the ground water within five minutes by handling pesticidesincorrectly ? but it takes 100 years for the water to fully recover.

Interregprojects are very important, but they cannot be directly connected tothe overall development in a large territory like the Baltic Sea.Interreg projects are important for supporting political decisions thatcan have a positive impact. They can help with information spreading,demonstrations, or trainings. Interreg projects can help to push thingsinto the right direction - but a project cannot do it alone.

What are your findings in SuMaNu: What makes an agri-environmental cooperation project succeed or not succeed?

Henning Foged: In SuMaNu, we analysedseven EU funded projects, namely Manure Standards and Baltic SlurryAcidification funded by Interreg Baltic Sea Region, GreenAgri fromInterreg Central Baltic and the BONUS Programme?s PROMISE project. Alsoresults from the previous Interreg projects Baltic COMPASS, Baltic DEALand Baltic MANURE are utilized. And we already found some clear results.

We found that the project objectives were not always formulatedclearly. From our perspective, it would be best to request applicantsto use the S.M.A.R.T. approach. This way, project leaders would have toexpress concretely, what exactly they want to achieve, and it would beeasier to check if they did.

Another finding is about theimportance of involving stakeholders along the solution you are workingwith. If a project stays at distance from policy, administration andend-users and produces only scientific results, the project does notachieve anything, and nobody knows about the results.

What is your vision of Interreg beyond 2020?

Henning Foged:I think the Interregconcept should continue, in particular the clear links to specificpolicies such as the EUSBSR should be maintained. But from the practicalpoint of view, I would like to see a funding scheme that has morefavourable financing conditions, a much lighter administration and ahigher standing among administration.

I have observed many times that the co-financingrates and the requirement for pre-funding by partners hindersorganisations to participate in an Interreg project, and often thesewould be important partners for us. The Programme Manual is far too big,and bi-annual first level controls are an overkill. That?s why far toomuch money goes to auditing companies and not to solving the actualchallenges. Also, I always get very detailed questions on financialreports but hardly any questions on the activity report. There should bea better balance.

When it comes to public authorities, we would reallylike to involve more partners from administration, but it seems thatit?s hard for them to prioritise Interreg projects. Most authoritieshave a minimum of human resources and no obligation to workinternationally. It would be helpful if more people in administrationknew about the benefits of Interreg projects.

What do you personally like about working in transnational Interreg projects?

Henning Foged: Interreg gives meopportunities to work internationally. To me it is a privilege totravel, to meet other people and to get to know other cultures. By thisyou better understand others? perspectives, but also your own situationand your own country and you learn to look at things from differentsides.