Conference to discuss agricultural opportunities and funding
Agriculture Minister Simon Coveney will be one of the key speakers at the event, first held in 1936. He was invited by the organisers because of his role as chairman of the European Council of Agriculture and Fisheries Ministers last year.
The Oxford conference website says Mr Coveney was at the forefront regarding EU efforts in respect of Common Agriculture Policy as well as Common Fisheries Policy reforms.
“Under his chairmanship both dossiers were progressed significantly, with a reform package for CFP agreed in May 2013 and a reform package for CAP agreed at the end of the Irish presidency in July,” it said.
European agricultural and rural development commissioner Dacian Ciolos; the British secretary of state for the environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Owen Patterson; and Farmers Union president Peter Kendall will also deliver papers during the Jan 6-8 conference.
Conference co-chair Adrian Ivory said driving the debate will be research that investigates the structure, processes, and relationships needed to establish a truly competitive UK agriculture sector beyond the next decade. “The research report we’ve commissioned is likely to be controversial, because it highlights the need for changes to how farms are operated and funded, some of which will be unpalatable to those who prefer working within the status quo,” he said.
Meanwhile, following a General Assembly decision, the UN has declared 2014 as the International Year of Family Farming.
If aims to raise the profile of family farming from the perspective of effectively combating poverty and hunger, providing food security, searching for a rural development based on the respect for environment and biodiversity, and improving livelihoods.
The celebration aims to become a tool to stimulate policies for sustainable development of agricultural systems-based farmer families, communal units, indigenous groups, co-operatives, and fishing families.
The world is fed by more than 500m family farms, which represent more than 80% of farms worldwide.
Commissioner Ciolas said family farms are the foundations on which Europe’s CAP was built. “They continue to stay at the heart of European agri-culture as robust generators of competitiveness, growth and jobs, of dynamic and sustainable rural economies,” he said.
