Improving the competitiveness of rural businesses: lessons from the Rural Inspiration Awards 2019

Five years after participating in the first Rural Inspiration Awards, three businesses from southern, western and northern Europe spoke about how that recognition was just as important as the initial EAFRD funding. It enabled them to continue to expand their ventures beyond their original scope, helping their local regions respond to the challenges faced by rural areas.

The Rural Inspiration Awards (RIA) 2019 was the first EU-wide rural development good practice competition to be organised by the European Network for Rural Development (ENRD), recognising projects using funding from the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) to make European rural areas more competitive, sustainable and inclusive.

The competition, which evolved to become the Agricultural and Rural Inspiration Awards (ARIA), aimed to increase the visibility of both the projects and the contribution of rural development policy, and to promote knowledge transfer and networking among rural development stakeholders. Five years later, many of the projects have leveraged the support of the RIA, both financial and in terms of networking, to expand their horizons. The continued success of these enterprises serves to demonstrate and enhance resilience in the farming sector, supporting viable streams of income and competitiveness.

Nuria Alvarez is a Spanish farmer in her 30s who used EAFRD funding in 2017 to introduce a blackberry plantation in her hometown of Zamora in north-west Spain, primarily known for wheat and barley production. Her Agroberry project has gone from strength to strength, thanks in no small part to the RIA.

“Since 2019, we have seen constant growth, both in our production capabilities and in sales, aiming at the international market as well,” Nuria said. “Our own production workshop is now up and running, using renewable energy and allowing us to produce larger quantities more efficiently. We are working on an R&D project with the aim of a zero-waste system to reutilise our subproduct as a new food item to sell, and close our production cycle, in accordance with sustainability best practices. We have also opened a specialised shop for our products where we host agrotourism visits.”

Nuria was always an active networker, and this has only increased in the years since the award. “Thanks to the prize, I was able to participate in workshops that provided me with useful knowledge to grow and improve my project. For example, I became aware of the Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs programme, and I’m currently hosting a Young Entrepreneur from Italy.”

For Jonathan O’Meara, who set up the micro-enterprise Mid Ireland Adventure to respond to the demand for adventure sports in a rural context, “being nominated for the RIA was a great honour for a small business like us. Being selected opened up a lot of doors at home and put a great deal of weight behind the business as a trusted brand. It really helped in terms of sitting down to talk to people in local authorities. When I mentioned the nomination for the RIA, their ears perked up – it gave us more credibility. Being able to use it on leaflets and in emails gave us a sense of confidence.”

“Despite the fact that we are a small business, we have come a long way. It was a great honour for us and we are still seeing positive effects,” Jonathan explained. He has now taken on a second full-time employee and a couple of seasonal part-time staff, and is also looking at potentially opening another activity in 2026 with the help of funding allocated to help rural areas cope with the closure of the peatland bogs in the Irish midlands.

Heading further north, the Kyrö whisky distillery in rural Finland used Rural Development Programme (RDP) support to increase and diversify its production to meet growing demand from national and international markets, while also reducing its carbon footprint. The company used RDP Measure 4 – Investments in physical assets to set up a new production line for gin to allow the parallel production of both gin and whisky, all entirely made from Finnish rye. The distillery renovated its facilities, including a visitor centre with a showroom and restaurant, improved its logistics, and increased the production capacity of both gin and whisky by 400 %.

Miko Heinilä, who has at various times looked after sales, leadership and the distillery itself at Kyrö, highlighted the publicity that the 2019 RIA gained in local media, boosting the awareness of the venture throughout Finland. Primarily for Miko, however, it was the funding for the expansion that was the “essential kick-start for our company”, which has continued its growth in the years since receiving the award.

“The project has developed a lot since 2019,” he says. “We are now distributed in around 40 countries, have been nominated in the ‘Top 50 Most Admired Whisky Brands’ list for four years in a row, and the Kyrö Sauna Stories whisky series was nominated for the world's top 10 most innovative products 2024. We have built the biggest whisky distillery in Finland with 1.2 million litres of stock.”

With Kyrö now featuring at airport duty-free outlets, the company is now an established spirits brand, and one of many genuine success stories which the Rural Inspiration Awards have helped along the path to greater sectoral resilience and competitiveness.

To find out more about the projects highlighted in the article, visit the websites of Agroberry – Original from Zamora, Mid Ireland Adventures and Kyrö Distillery.

Note: this article is part of a Policy Insights series on the impact of the Rural Inspiration Awards 2019 on the projects nominated as finalists or winners. Check out the other articles in the series: Revitalising rural Europe: Success stories from the Rural Inspiration Awards 2019 and Roots in nature: local projects bringing hope and change.