Model of Sustainable Development at the Level of Local Government

The cooperation between local communities, scientific research institutions and LAGs ‒ local action groups (especially to development oriented agricultural farms, SMEs ‒ small and medium enterprises and entrepreneurs in the field of agriculture) is imposed as necessary during the establishment of the strategy of sustainable agriculture and rural development of any local community in the Republic of Serbia. Only with close cooperation of all interested local stakeholders can be set a realistic SWOT matrix that describes well state of agriculture and rural areas at the local level (picture of internal resources and development constraints, in the context of opportunities and threats of the environment), then definition of adequate development goals and directions of investment activities that would lead to the realization of determined goals of sustainable agricultural and rural development. As any local government should individually find the best possible modalities for making of its own plan for sustainable development of agriculture and rural development, the intention of the Institute of Agricultural Economics from Belgrade, in this case, was the establishment of model for sustainable development of agriculture and rural areas at the territory of Backi Petrovac municipality (Vojvodina region). The core of proposed model is contained in establishment of the document based on completeness and integrativity, social consensus, in other words participation of citizens, farmers and all stakeholders, in order to achieve more efficient decision-making process related to future capital investments.