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EU-FarmBook is the answer to real needs of farmers, foresters and advisors. It is a Horizon Europe project that is working at regional, national, and European (EU) levels to build an Online Platform for gathering and sharing valuable knowledge.
Metsäliitto Cooperative, the parent company of Metsä Group, is owned by forest owners in Finland. After paying their statutory shares, members can increase their ownership by investing in additional Metsä1 shares.
The cooperative pays annual interest on these shares, and its profit-sharing model rewards members who actively trade wood with the group. This allows forests to keep generating value long after harvesting.
Since 2022, part of Metsäliitto’s profits has been distributed as additional Metsä1 shares, based on each member’s wood deliveries over the previous four years.
Södra (Skogsägarna) is a forestry cooperative based in Växjö, Sweden, and the largest in the country. Over 52,000 forest owners in southern Sweden are members, owning more than half of all privately owned forest in the area.
The group employs around 3,150 people in forestry management, environmental conservation, accounting, sales, and product development. Its three main business areas produce sawn and planed timber goods, paper pulp, and biofuel. In recent years, Södra has become such a large producer of electricity that it now generates more than it consumes. Founded in 1938 through the merger of five southern Swedish cooperatives, one of its founders, Gösta Edström, became Södra’s first CEO.
The INTERCEDE project is reviewing and assessing market-based instruments (MBIs) across Europe to foster the provision of forest ecosystem services (FES).
Through its stakeholder platform – the Transdisciplinary Forum – the project is engaging end-users to identify MBIs that are scalable, adaptable, and effective in supporting forest and land owners as well as SMEs.
The aim: to create financially viable and socially valuable solutions that benefit both forest owners and society at large.
The Union of Foresters of Southern Europe (USSE) is an European Economic Interest Grouping (EEIG) uniting forester organizations of Southern Europe.
Its headquarters are located in Zamudio, Vizcaya, in the Basque Country, while it has another office in Maison de la Forêt, located at 6 Parvis des Chartrons, 33075 Bordeaux Cedex.
The USSE was founded in 1989, as the initiative of forest owner organisations of Euskadi, Galicia, Aquitaine, Castilla y León and Catalonia; today, the USSE accommodates regional or national associations from Portugal, Spain, the Basque Country, Aquitaine and Greece.
They ensure that EU agriculture and forestry are sustainable, innovative and competitive, while guaranteeing food security for 500 million people throughout Europe.
Copa represents over 22 million farmers and their family members whilst Cogeca represents the interests of 22,000 agri-cooperatives.
They work to promote sustainable forest management and the multifunctional role of forests. Together with their members, they also work on enhancing the production and use of renewable energy on farms by exploring new opportunities and overcoming barriers.
The Finnish Forest Center (Metsäkeskus) is a government-linked organization under Finland’s Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. As a pioneer in sustainable forestry, Metsäkeskus plays an important role in advising forest owners and promoting sustainable practices. Its mission is rooted in providing expert guidance on forest management, facilitating the responsible use of natural resources, and ensuring compliance with forest legislation.
Know a successful support system: The Small-Scale Forestry Unit (3.08.00) is a group of researchers working world-wide in the explotation of the social, economic and technical dimensions of farm, family, non-industrial and community forestry. The oldest support system working for Small Forest Holdings at the international level.
It’s part of IUFRO, the International Union of Forest Research Organizations, that is a non-profit, non-governmental international network of forest scientists that aim to comprise knowledge generation, knowledge sharing and capacity building.
The Unit was founded in 1986, as a co-operative effort of IUFRO Divisions 3, 4 and 6. The main topics of the contributions presented at the meetings have dealt with economic and policy issues and also technical aspects of small-scale forestry.