Estonian Rural Development Plan 2007-2013

The Estonian Rural Development Plan (ERDP) is a national sectoral plan of Estonia for the period 2007-2013. Its main objective is to support the regionally balanced development of rural areas of Estonia through the European Union Common Agricultural Policy measures.
The ERDP aims to make agriculture, forestry and fisheries more productive and sustainable. To this end, it is planning to maintain the countryside through continual use of agricultural land and to promote the systems of sustainable agricultural production, supporting the improvement of the environment and the countryside by the maintenance of lands; to ensure conformity with nature protection requirements in Natura 2000 network areas, to maintain agricultural activity in those areas and to contribute to coping with handicaps; to promote the implementation and continual use of environmentally friendly management methods in agriculture; to preserve and increase biological and landscape diversity; to help the agricultural producers acting in an environmentally favourable way to get adequate income; to increase the environmental awareness of agricultural producers; to promote the introduction and continual use of environmentally friendly management methods in agriculture, in order to protect and increase biological and landscape diversity and to protect the status of water and soil; to expand environmentally friendly planning in agriculture; to increase the awareness of agricultural producers of the environment; to maintain and increase biological and landscape diversity and to maintain and improve soil fertility and water quality; to support the development of organic farming and to contribute to the increase in the volume of organic products; to support and improve the competitiveness of organic farming; to ensure the conservation of local endangered breeds valuable for cultural heritage and genetic diversity; to ensure the favourable conservation status of the semi-natural habitats located in Natura 2000 areas; to improve animal welfare, to maintain and improve biological and landscape diversity and to improve the soil fertility of cultural grasslands; to contribute to the establishment and restoration of stonewalls as traditional elements of agricultural landscapes, having high historic, cultural and landscape value; to create habitats and to improve biodiversity; to diversify agricultural landscapes; to reduce wind and water erosion; to ensure good status of the environment by the establishment of protection forests; and to contribute to the sustainable use of private forest land located in Natura 2000 area.
Further, for reducing rural poverty, the document targets to improve the competitiveness and sustainability of rural entrepreneurs through the diversification of rural enterprise (primarily in peripheral areas), and to contribute to the creation of new and better jobs; to diversify agricultural production and the rural economy through bioenergy and other innovative investments, which also promote the development of environmentally friendly business and, arising from the main objective of the measure, creating better employment; to improve the attraction of the rural living environment and the quality of life there by increasing local activity and developing the nonprofit sector; to promote local initiative, contributing to the improvement of competitiveness of agriculture and forestry, of the environment and the countryside, and particularly to the improvement of the quality of life and to the diversification of economic activities, through mobilising the internal development potential of the rural area.
To enable more inclusive and efficient agricultural and food systems, the ERDP seeks to improve the competitiveness of agricultural, food and forestry sectors through the development of human potential of those sectors; to facilitate setting up of young agricultural producers and to contribute to the change of generations in agriculture; to support the availability of advisory services foreseen for agricultural producers and private forest holders; to improve the competitiveness of private forest owners; to improve the competitiveness of agricultural and non-wood forestry; to promote co-operation between the raw material producers of the agricultural and forestry sector, processing industry, and/or third parties; to preserve the operation of drainage systems on agricultural and forest land; to facilitate the joint economic activities of agricultural entrepreneurs through the support for the setting-up of producer groups and through the support for their administrative activities during their first years of activity; and to help to adapt the production and output of producer group members to market requirements and to improve the market access of products through common marketing.
The main role in the co-ordination of the ERDP monitoring and evaluation system is given to the Rural Development Department of the Ministry of Agriculture of Estonia which, among other duties, provides guidance to the relevant institutions in the matters of the monitoring and evaluation of the ERDP, performs the duties of the Secretariat of the ERDP Monitoring Committee, prepares the annual monitoring reports and the final report, and submits those reports to the European Commission after approval by the ERDP Monitoring Committee.