LaboraTe and European Commission Directorate General for Agriculture meeting

Submitted by laborate on Wed, 13/06/2012 - 09:58 GMT.

On Monday, June 11th two LaboraTe professors, Francisco José Ónega and its director, Rafael Crecente, attended in Brussels (Belgium) a meeting at the headquarters of European Commission's Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development.

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From this institution participated its general director, José Manuel Silva Rodríguez - who is also teacher at the masterterra, the Master in Sustainable Land Planning taught at the USC -, Paolo Poinelli, assistant of the general director, Pierre Bascou, head of unit Economic analysis of European Union agriculture and Efthimios Bokias, deputy head of the unit for Spain and Portugal. The meeting was also attended by Frank van Holst, from the Dutch Government Service for Land and Water Management Government (DLG) and manager of the LandNet and Farland networks.

The main purpose of the meeting, which lasted about two hours, was to address the issues of land ownership use under the coming Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). The relationship and mutual influence between traditional European Union's agricultural policies and the status and dynamics of land structure were analyzed. The ultimate goal is finding synergies between the actions carried at European level and the strategies and tools at local and regional levels according to the integrated vision that characterizes the masterterra, forum in which Silva Rodríguez addressed these issues during the academic year 2011-2012.

One of the challenges of many European regions will face is finding suitable strategies for adapting land structures and uses to the socioeconomic and environmental challenges that the future CAP and Europe 2020 growth strategy pose. In words of Silva Rodríguez, it will require synergies between European policies and national / regional coordination and strengthen both approaches.

This meeting was the first in a series of joint activities in this area.

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