Stakeholder involvement in the management of rural areas following a nuclear accident: the farming network

The importance of the participation of stakeholders in the formulation of strategies for maintaining agricultural production and food safety following a nuclear accident, has been successfully demonstrated by the Agriculture and Food Countermeasures Working Group (AFCWG). This group was set up in the UK by the National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB) and the then Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food in 1997 (Nisbet and Mondon, 2001). Before this time stakeholder organisations had not collectively considered the implications of contamination of the foodchain in the event of an accidental release of radioactivity. With funding from the European Commission (EC) the UK approach to stakeholder engagement is being taken forward on a European basis during the period 2000-2004 through a project given the acronym FARMING (Food and Agriculture Restoration Management Involving Networked Groups). The overall objective of this project is to create a network of stakeholder working groups in 5 member states (UK, Belgium, Finland, France and Greece) to assist in the development of robust and practicable strategies for restoring and managing contaminated agricultural land and food products in a sustainable way. The initial intention was to involve at least 50 individual stakeholders