Family farming is an important part of the EU agriculture
Commission launches consultation on family farming
05/08/2013 - 12:52pm
The European Commission has launched an e-consultation on family farming. The contributions will feed the preparations of the European conference“Family farming: a dialogue towards more sustainable and resilient farming in Europe and the world.”
The importance of family farming for the development of the EU agricultural economy is crucial, since the majority of the EU's 12 million farms being family farms, passed down from one generation to another. The consultation seeks to formulate the role of family farming with a view to identifying key challenges and priorities for the future.
Overall the EU aims to provide incentives to encourage modernisation and help farmers improve their farms, process and sell their produce and produce higher-quality foods using more sustainable, environmentally-friendly farming methods. From 2014, the Common Agricultural Policy will offer new measures to facilitate collective investment, help small farms to develop and encourage transfers of agronomic know-how between farmers through a European Innovation Partnership in the farming sector.
The UN decided to declare 2014 as the International Year of Family Farming, seeking to raise the profile of family farming by focusing world attention on its role in alleviating hunger and poverty, providing food security and improving livelihoods, while protecting the environment and biodiversity.
According to the UN, the threats to Family Farming are multidimensional. Climate change, land grabbing, land degradation, the aggressive promotion of industrial farming and dependence on large agribusiness chains are some of the most pressing challenges. However, many family farmers have proven to be innovative and resilient, especially when supported by public and institutional policies. europe on line
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