Brussels, 29/11/2013 (Agence Europe) - The Commission's DG Agriculture held a conference in Brussels on Friday 29 November on family farming. FAO Director General José Graziano da Silva and Carlo Petrini, from the Slow Food movement, attended the conference.
At a press conference, Dacian Ciolos, European Commissioner, explained that family farming in the EU28 continues to be the dominant farming model. “Over 95% of farms in the EU are family farms”, he stressed. There are differences from one country to the next however and, he said, these differences must be understood in order to take them into account in a common agricultural policy and in a common market. It is appropriate to use the CAP instruments available to help family farms (to modernise, for example) but these farms should not be helped artificially (by decreeing that it is the model of farming that must prevail), Ciolos explained.
Graziano da Silva said it was impossible to find a solution to famine in the world without improving agricultural results. He pointed out that, in Africa, many women work on mostly subsistence farms. The 2014 International Year of Family Farming (IYFF) was launched by the United Nations in New York on 22 November. (LC/transl.jl)