The Danish Agricultural Advisory Centre

The Danish Agricultural Advisory Centre is the national centre of the nationwide advisory service for Danish farmers. The Centre is owned and run jointly by the two main farmers' organizations, The Danish Farmers' Union and The Family Farmers' Association.

The Danish Agricultural Advisory Centre attends to all general and coordinating tasks whereas direct advice to the farmers is handled by 85 local advisory centres which are owned and run by the local farmers' and family farmers' organizations.

Principal tasks

Specialist advice
involves being a know-how bank for the local advisers. The Danish Agricultural Advisory Centre employs specialists in all farming-related areas and they have daily contact to the advisers employed by the local advisory centres.

Communication of knowledge and information
involves bridging the information gap between the agricultural research institutions and the local advisers who are supplied with results and information from the research institutions and other information sources in Denmark and abroad in the form of newsletters, reports, articles in farm magazines, etc.

Development activities
involve the development of methods and tools for the advisory service and the farmers, e.g. converting research findings into practical farming through the development of breeding programs, improved computer programs, etc.

Experiments and studies
involve generating new know-how. The Danish Agricultural Advisory Centre conducts a number of experiments in cooperation with the local advisory centres and a wide range of tasks are solved in cooperation with the research institutions.

Education and training
involve the development and coordination of the farmers' education and courses for local advisers, agricultural teachers and farmers.

Service tasks
involve a number of services which are most appropriately solved at national level. It includes tasks for farmers, the advisory service, etc.

Organization

The Danish Agricultural Advisory Centre is organized in national departments within plant production, cattle husbandry, pig production, horse breeding, farm accounting and management, farm buildings and machinery as well as education. Moreover, there are some other departments which help solving the various tasks.

The majority of tasks solved at The Danish Agricultural Advisory Centre are handled in one national department only but it is constantly assessed whether the tasks are best solved by more departments. The nature of the task determines whether it should be solved by one department or in a cooperation between staff from more departments.

The latter type of tasks is handled in a flexible project organization which is managed with qualified staff from different national departments.

The Danish Agricultural Advisory Centre has approximately 460 employees.

Management

The day-to-day management of the Danish Agricultural Advisory Centre is in the hands of the managing director and the deputy managing director in cooperation with the chief adviser of each national department.

The Centre is managed by a teamwork, including the day-to-day management, the farmer-elected farmers, who represent the two main farmers' organizations owning the Centre, and the national committees, who are in charge of the activities of the individual national departments.

The managerial composition thus illustrates one of the characteristic features of the Danish agricultural advisory model: it is managed by the users and it is independent of both the state and other economic interests.

Further information

You will find the address and relevant phone and fax numbers of The Danish Agricultural Advisory Centre below.

	The Danish Agricultural Advisory Centre Udkærsvej 15, Skejby DK-8200 Århus N
	Phone: +45 87 40 50 00
	Fax: +45 87 40 50 10