LATVIJAS LAUKU FORUMS

Their core work

Latvijas Lauku Forums (Latvian Rural Forum) is a national-level NGO representing rural communities and farmers in Latvia, with a focus on shaping agricultural and rural development policy at both national and EU levels. In H2020 research, they contribute the practitioner's voice of organized rural civil society — bringing real farming communities into policy co-design processes and food system governance. Their H2020 participation spans collaborative rural policy development (PoliRural) and the co-creation of resilient urban-rural food systems (CITIES2030), where they provide local rural knowledge, community access, and validation from a Baltic agricultural context. They bridge the gap between large-scale EU research consortia and the people those projects are meant to serve.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

LLF entered H2020 through PoliRural (2019), focused squarely on rural policy design, agricultural governance, and data-driven analysis of rural futures — including text mining approaches to policy intelligence. By their second project, CITIES2030 (2020), the focus had broadened considerably toward urban-rural food system resilience, short supply chains, nature-based solutions, ecosystem services, food security, and even blockchain technology as a traceability tool. The shift is from inward-looking rural policy advocacy toward outward-facing food system architecture that connects rural producers to urban consumers and integrates environmental sustainability into supply chain design.

LLF is moving from traditional rural policy representation toward food system sustainability and traceability, making them an increasingly relevant partner for projects that sit at the intersection of agricultural communities, short supply chains, and emerging food technologies.

How they like to work

LLF participates exclusively as a consortium partner — they have never coordinated an H2020 project — which reflects the typical role of a national advocacy NGO that contributes domain access and community legitimacy rather than research leadership. Their 80 unique partners across just two projects indicates they have been embedded in very large, broad consortia (approximately 40 organizations per project), suggesting they are selected to fill a specific "Baltic rural civil society" seat rather than being a recurring team player with fixed partners. Working with them means gaining credible access to Latvia's organized farming community and a trusted interlocutor for rural stakeholder engagement.

LLF has built a surprisingly wide European network from just two projects: 80 unique consortium partners across 27 countries, reflecting the pan-European composition of both PoliRural and CITIES2030. Their connections span research institutes, municipalities, food system actors, and rural organisations across much of the EU, with particular relevance for Baltic and Eastern European agriculture.

What sets them apart

As Latvia's national rural forum, LLF offers something most academic or technology partners cannot: direct, organized access to Latvian farming communities and credibility as a rural civil society voice in policy processes. For consortia that need to demonstrate genuine rural engagement, participatory validation, or Baltic country coverage in food and agriculture projects, LLF fills a specific gap that no university or research institute can replicate. Their combination of policy advocacy experience and growing exposure to food technology topics (blockchain, ecosystem services) makes them a bridge between community-level farming realities and the more technical ambitions of large EU food system projects.

Highlights from their portfolio

• CITIES2030
  Their largest and most complex project (EUR 205,942), combining short food supply chains, nature-based solutions, and blockchain technology in a pan-European urban food systems initiative running through 2024.
• PoliRural
  Notable for its use of text mining in rural policy analysis — an unusual methodological combination for a civil society organisation, suggesting LLF engaged with data-driven policy intelligence beyond typical advocacy work.