Brussels, Belgium
July 5, 2007
What are the major challenges
facing European agriculture? And how can research help farmers
and the wider rural community meet these challenges? These
questions were at the heart of a conference on the future of
agricultural research held in Brussels on 26 and 27 June.
The starting point of the event was the outcome of a foresight
process carried out by the EU's Standing Committee on
Agricultural Research (SCAR). A Foresight Expert Group, set up
in June 2006, developed scenarios based on the factors most
likely to disrupt European agriculture over the next 20 years.
In the climate shock scenario, an acceleration of environmental
impacts related to climate change seriously disrupts European
agriculture.
The second, energy crisis scenario foresees an energy crisis,
where Europe's lack of investments in bioenergies leaves it
facing severe energy shortages when the oil price skyrockets.
A food crisis scenario envisages a world where global
agriculture is faced with the challenge of providing sufficient,
safe food for the growing world population.
Finally, a 'cooperation with nature' scenario offers a more
optimistic vision of the future, in which society and technology
work together to ensure sustainable development at all levels.
The authors of the foresight report note that by 'disruption'
they mean fast change, resulting in both positive and negative
changes. 'Therefore the main challenge facing agro-food actors
is the speed of adaptation and proactive responses to secure a
European lead in this area,' they write.
Other speakers at the workshop backed up the foresight group's
findings; with most agreeing that climate change in particular
would pose major problems for Europe's farmers in the coming
decades.
“One of the most important results of the Commission conference
is that there is a need for new European research and new
technologies, said Christian Patermann, director for
’Biotechnologies, agriculture and food research” at the European
Commission in a video news interview, which is part of a regular
series published on the CORDIS Knowledge-based bio-economy
service. “The efforts to do so are multinational,
multidisciplinary, long term, addressing the complexities of
agriculture and its survival […] This includes as well the need
to communicate complex results to farmers, to forest owners and
particularly to young farmers how to use this knowledge, which
is the basis for the new bio-economy.”
'We need the same thing as other businesses - access to research
results,' said at the Conference Giacomo Ballari, President of
the European Council of Young Farmers. 'We need a common
platform where researchers and farmers can meet.'
The conference proceedings will be added to the other outcomes
of the foresight process, which will feed into a report by the
European Commission on the coordination of agricultural research
in Europe. The report will be presented to the European
Parliament and Council in 2008.
For more information about the conference, please visit:
http://ec.europa.eu/research/conferences/2007/scar/index_en.htm
For a news report:
http://cordis.europa.eu/fetch?CALLER=EN_NEWS&ACTION=D&SESSION=&RCN=27942
For information about the Standing Committee on Agricultural
Research (SCAR), please visit:
http://ec.europa.eu/research/agriculture/scar/index_en.cfm
For information on funding for agricultural research under FP7,
please go to:
http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/kbbe/home_en.html
For articles featuring the outcome of EU-funded research
projects for agriculture, please visit:
http://cordis.europa.eu/fetch?CALLER=EN_PRESS_PROJ&USR_SORT=&QZ_WEBSRCH=agriculture
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