Southern Agriculture and Horticulture Organisation
About
RPIG (Netherlands)
The Southern Agriculture and Horticulture Organization (ZLTO) represents the interests of entrepreneurs working in green areas.
Around 16,000 farmers and growers in the South-Netherlands are members of our association. Together with them, ZLTO works hard to produce healthy food innovatively and sustainably.
Expertise
ZLTO supports green entrepreneurs in their daily operational business and is also their connection to other sectors and organizations for creating new opportunities for sustainable economic growth and social welfare. But also a connection to consumers and people who love the countryside. We also work on better connections between farmers and consumers and people who love the countryside.
Account managers and specialist market teams advise and assist entrepreneurs in the countryside with their issues. It does not matter if it is for individual advice or for setting up projects, ZLTO is always ready to help!
In addition, ZLTO participates and invests in strategic activities and innovations within the food and agriculture sector that are of added value for the (future) market position of our members. Forging partnerships with other sectors and social organizations is a primary aim.
Involvement
ZLTO is the RPIG leader of the Netherlands. Together with the nationwide network of ‘POV’ we’re selecting good practices from a Dutch grassroots level and search new R&D-needs from a producers side.
Besides ZLTO participating in work package 5 (Meat quality), and work package 6 (Communication and End User Material), ZLTO also leads work package 7 (Regional Knowledge Exchange) that includes the annual EU PiG 'Grand Prix' contest, promoting knowledge exchange and best practice across the EU PiG network.
Our team
Jos Peerlings, Specialist Pig Industry
Dirk Beekmans, Specialist Commercial Customer Service
Mark de Jong, Specialist Public Affairs
Mark is very familiar with these kinds of European innovation projects. He’s very much involved in many innovation networks across Europe, such as EuroDairy, PURE Hubs, STRING (food clusters) and AGRISPIN. His key role is always on (knowledge) communications and new participatory design approaches.