LAG South-Järvamaa Partnership (NGO) was established in 2006. The main goal of activities is to develop local life and implementing LEADER measure. We are one of the smallest LAGs in Estonia. We are located at Central-Estonia, and LAG area involves the municipalities of Türi, Imavere and Väätsa – this means the southern part of Järva County – the sunnier side of Järva county.

South-Järvamaa Partnership is a growing and developing organization. The LAG has currently 62 members: 3 local municipalities, 25 business sector representatives and 34 representatives from third sector (organisations and societies). The LAG is lead by the board that consists of 11 members – 3 persons from public sector, 4 persons from business sector and 4 persons from third sector. All three municipalities of the LAG have their own representatives in the board. The LAG has two employees: LAG manager and counselor-accountant. The slogan of our area is “It’s comfy in South Järva county!“

The southern part of Järva County is a traditional agricultural area with one of the most fruitful soil in Estonia, well-developed large-scale production and dairy-farming, with the biggest dairy farms of Europe, and also small farms. The area is relatively sparsely populated. The highlight of the area is rich, beautiful and pure nature. More than 50% of area is covered with forests that are diversified with wet-areas, bogs, drumlins and preserves. All this offers a great opportunity for having natural, peaceful and safe living environment and to spend a nice active holiday. Southern part of Järva county has an interesting history and cultural heritage.

The local museums and events of the area make the region even more popular: Estonian Broadcasting Museum in Türi, Estonian Dairy Museum in Imavere, Estonian Bicycle Museum in Väätsa, and different events – Türi Flower Fair, The Open Farm Day, The Milk Day in Imavere, Spring Festival in Türi, and Apple Festival in Türi, etc.

The most significant problem of the area is the big number of people moving outside of this area. During the last 5 years the number of inhabitants has decreased for 9%, and the trend is growing, especially among children and working-age people. As of this year, the number of inhabitants of the LAG-area is less than 12 000. Another problem is the low number of adequate jobs and proper salary. For example, the investments into technologies have reduced the jobs in agriculture and other important spheres. In the area there is basically no manufacturing industry, and micro-enterprises with small number of employers, mostly in services sector, tend to dominate in the region. This is the reason why people are moving away, together with whole families to be closer to suitable job-market. People must find new solutions to succeed in the rural area.

It was commonly agreed while compiling the Strategy, that the area’s development potential could be hid into modernizing and diversifying the entrepreneurship. That includes the development of opportunities for telecommuting.

A new fresh slogan was create “The most important value is the HUMAN, and the bases of the region are the jobs that allow self-realization, cohesive community and cooperation.”

Despite all factors, the vision for 2020 is positive – the region will be an active rural area with pleasant living- and entrepreneurial environment, with happy and cooperative people.

LAG Strategy consists of 4+1 following measures for reaching this vision, and the financial part has been divided as follows: Developing the community 17%, Developing the living environment 22%, Developing the entrepreneurial environment 27%, Developing local products and marketing 23%, And last, but not the least – the final measure is Measure for implementing national and transnational cooperation. Here the only applicant can be the LAG itself. The percentage of this measure from total support sum is 11%.

At last period the LAG had one very successful LEADER transnational cooperation project of nature tourism – “Wolf”.  There were 14 partners, and the leading partner was LAG from Spain.

Some cooperation project activities:
– Bringing together different interest groups (livestock farmers, hunters, specialists of environment etc.).
– Mapping the preventive measures in all the project partner countries.
– Producing DVDs with related necessary information.
– Mapping the tourism-entrepreneurship (including natural tourism) activity area.
– Producing movie-clips about natural tourism and four seasons of Estonia by Spain cooperation partners.

At current period LAG South-Järvamaa Partnership does not have international project, but cooperation is planned with several Leader regions in Europe. Cooperation project „Sustainable community of South-Järvamaa“ includes study visits to Sweden, Denmark and Germany. The purpose of study visits is to learn about how to develop environment-friendly region and to see different practices of handicraft, city-planning, local food use, renovation etc.