Inari based Sámi Education Institute organised reindeer husbandry training for international focus group in January 17 – 24, 2012. The training gathered altogether 12 reindeer professionals from following areas of the northern part of the Russian Federation: Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Komi Republic, Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Taimyr area and Sakha Republic. The main specialty areas of the training were entrepreneurship, business co-operation, and development of slaughtering and further processing operations under the requirements of EU and hygiene legislation for the self-supervising plants on reindeer slaughterhouses and processing units. As a new spice, this year’s training contained introduction to positioning techniques of reindeer as well as to reindeer related tourism.
Connected to the training, the Sami Education Institute arranged a seminar with a title ”Innovations and Traditions of Arctic Reindeer Herding”. The seminar was held in Inari in Lassikota on January 20th. The main themes were the state of reindeer herding in general throughout the herding areas, reindeer pastures, reindeer meat and leather production and their marketing. Positioning technologies of grazing animals were also discussed. Mr. Nikolay Stepanov, Dean of Faculty of Agricultural Technology in the Yakut State Agricultural Academy, gave a presentation on development of positioning techniques in co-operation with Sámi Education Institute.