A hundred of “Tickets for employment in agriculture” in Petrovac

One hundred unemployed people in Petrovac received on 31 January “Tickets for employment in agriculture”, which will give them opportunity to take part in the education programme for the productio...

One hundred unemployed people in Petrovac received on 31 January “Tickets for employment in agriculture”, which will give them opportunity to take part in the education programme for the production of flax, buckwheat, rye, spelt and millet.

Sixty best participants will further receive grants that will enable them to start their own production of cereals on one acre of land and will thus becoming self-employed. Local Employment Partnership Petrovac who organised the training will insure buying crops.

Local Partnership Petrovac is one of 15 such partnerships established in the country under the project ‘Support to Local Employment Partnerships in BiH’. This EUR 4 million worth project funded by the European Union (EU) and implemented by the International Labour Organization (IOM) aims to increase employability of some 2,000 people through vocational training and to create at least 620 new jobs.

Beneficiaries of this Partnership’s programme which is funded by the EU in the amount of EUR 180,000 are unemployed people; women, youth, returnees, long-term unemployed, unemployed persons without qualifications and farmers whose farms were destroyed during the 2014 floods from Petrovac, Bosanski Petrovac, Drvar, Istočni Drvar, Ključ and Ribnik municipalities. All the beneficiaries of this Programme were selected through a public call.

Sixty beneficiaries, who start their own production of alternative cereals and change the type of the registration of their farms from non-commercial to commercial, will be included in the cereal production value chain and are expected to produce some 50 tons of cereals annually for the food industry.

In addition to Petrovac Municipality, as the lead partner in this Partnership, other members of this Partnership are municipalities from Bosanski Petrovac, Drvar, Istočni Drvar, Ključ and Ribnik, Sarajevo Faculty of Agriculture and Food Sciences, Banja Luka College, Employment Bureau of Republika Srpska, Employment Bureau of Una-Sana Canton, Agricultural Cooperative Klekovača, Žitoprodukt LLC and GEA Association.

Project ‘Support to Local Employment Partnerships in Bosnia and Herzegovina’ is part of the EU Local Development and Employment Program, funded by the EU with EUR 19 million in order to reduce unemployment and improve living standards in BiH.