FENAREG brings together leaders and institutional heads of agricultural policy from Southern Europe at an important international conference organised in partnership with CAP
The meeting is also vital to ensure that the future European Water Resilience Plan is based on a holistic approach, capable of integrating the distinct realities and needs of southern and northern Europe, ensuring agricultural resilience and food security across the continent.
Pierre Bascou, Deputy Director General of the European Commission’s Directorate General for Agriculture, José Manuel Fernandes, Portuguese Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, José Núncio, President of FENAREG and Irrigants d’Europe; Álvaro Mendonça e Moura, President of CAP; Paulo do Nascimento Cabral, MEP; Elli Tsifourou, Secretary General of Copa-Cogeca; as well as the heads of the main European agricultural organisations from Portugal, France, Spain, Italy, Greece and Croatia, will be the main speakers at the conference.
The resilience of irrigated agriculture in the face of climate change; the political and technological tools available to farmers; farmers’ expectations of the new CAP; and the role of agriculture and forests in the sustainability and cohesion of southern European countries, are the topics up for debate.
FENAREG – the National Federation of Irrigators of Portugal, as part of its mission, and at a crucial time for the future of the Common Agricultural Policy and for the development of guidelines for action and response to the sector’s main challenges, including the issue of European Water Resilience, is organising, in partnership with CAP – the Confederation of Farmers of Portugal, an important International Conference on Agriculture in Southern European Countries. The conference, which takes place as part of the National Agriculture Fair, will be held on 11 June from 10am in the Ribatejo Room at CNEMA.
This high-level meeting, which is crucial for reflecting on the challenges and priorities of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) post-2027, with emphasis on the need for a robust budget, which is fundamental for the future of European agriculture, will be attended by, among others : Pierre Bascou, Deputy Director General of the European Commission’s Directorate General for Agriculture, José Manuel Fernandes, Portuguese Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, José Núncio, President of FENAREG and Irrigants d’Europe; Álvaro Mendonça e Moura, President of CAP; Paulo do Nascimento Cabral, MEP; Elli Tsifourou, Secretary General of Copa-Cogeca; as well as the heads of the main European agricultural organisations from Portugal, France, Spain, Italy, Greece and Croatia.
Registration is free but compulsory and must be done at https://forms.office.com/e/SmwdaQmhXr
The resilience of irrigated agriculture in the face of climate change; the political and technological tools available to farmers; farmers’ expectations of the new
CAP; and the role of agriculture and forests in the sustainability and cohesion of southern European countries, are the topics up for debate.
José Núncio, President of FENAREG and Irrigants d’Europe, emphasises: “This is a very important moment both for the challenges and priorities of the post-2027 Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), because we need to ensure a robust budget, which is fundamental for the future of European agriculture, and for the European Water Resilience Plan, which directly impacts the development of agriculture and food security in Europe, and in the preparation of which the agricultural sector, which is one of the major users, must be involved. We hope that this debate will also help to give the European Water Resilience Plan a holistic vision, capable of uniting the different realities and needs of northern and southern Europe. The great challenge with regard to water is to balance realities and tailor solutions to each of the continent’s regions, articulating Flood Plans with Drought Plans, and converging the senses.”
He argues that: “it is essential that Water Resilience in Europe now also takes on a broader perspective and is attentive to the future, in which water storage will be increasingly critical and will tend to become strategic, not least because science tells us that water scarcity will be a growing reality that climate change will accelerate. On the other hand, the focus of the fight against waste, which is essentially based on penalising tariffs, should now be on modernising irrigation systems, which are much more evolved and efficient in the countries of the South, with less water resilience, where localised irrigation (drip) and sprinkler irrigation is used in 84% of the irrigated area, as opposed to regions where the resource is relatively more abundant and which still use the traditional cannon application systems that marked the 90s of the last century.”
About FENAREG
FENAREG – Federação Nacional de Regantes de Portugal (National Federation of Irrigators of Portugal) is a non-profit association of public utility with national scope, founded in 2005, with the mission of defending and promoting the sustainable development and competitiveness of irrigation. FENAREG represents the irrigation sector at national level in national and international institutions dedicated to the management of water for irrigation, bringing together the interests of the various interlocutors of activities linked to water, its management and interconnection with agriculture and the rural world.
FENAREG has 37 members representing more than 28,000 irrigating farmers, who account for more than 98% of organised irrigation in Portugal.
More information at https://www.fenareg.pt/
About Irrigants d’Europe
Irrigants d’Europe is the European association whose mission is to defend the interests of irrigated land before European bodies and to explain to society the importance of irrigated land in food production. It brings together the largest and most representative agricultural water management organisations. It was formed in 2018 and represents 7.7 of Europe’s 10.2 million hectares of irrigated land.
More information at www.irrigantsdeurope.eu