The first meeting of the National Steering Group in Bulgaria under the

"New Entrant netWork: Business models for Innovation, entrepreneurship and resilience in European agriculture" - NEWBIE Project

took place this month in Sofia. The Bulgarian National Steering Group consists of 8 very experienced representatives of researchers and educators who work for Agricultural Academy and University of National and World Economy, farmers associations chairpersons – National Association of Young Farmers (NAYF) and Bulgarian National Horticultural Union, who are new entrants, advisors from National Agricultural Advisory Service and BGRegioni, NGOs - Society for Territorial and Environmental Prosperity , NBDN (association of business incubators and centres).

The group discussed the project NEWBIE, its objectives, expected outputs and results and their responsibilities, how could contribute to the project implementation and which business models of new entrants could be relevant to NEWBIE, how farmers associations could be informed about the project activities, the interaction and complimentary of projects, in particular H2020 agri –projects, efforts and resources.

Suggested topics for the discussion circles: Access to market – one of the main problems of the new entrants and farmers and Access to labour force.  And national topics of interest: main changes in CAP in the next programme period and influence in Bulgarian farmers and enormous bureaucracy.