Agriculture and rural development: quality agriculture and sustainable rural development at the heart of AER member Regions' interests
Rural areas cover more than 80% of the territory of the European Union. There is a widespread, however faulty conviction that they are responsible only for food supply. In reality, they consist of many different environments: while the food production still remain the main sector of local population's activity, cultural heritage and industrial production sites, often planted outside urban centres, generate a high development potential for rural land as well. Moreover, rural areas play a crucial role in keeping a global ecosystem in balance. It is proved that a number of present environmental problems such as climate change, air pollution, soil erosion and low water quality are due to the very intensive way in which we use our lands.
Some current EU policies developments, including the CAP reform are likely to promote more sustainable development of rural areas. The general tendency is to move towards a system concentrated less on market and more on development and environmental issues. The new CAP should contribute to the preservation of biodiversity of European rural areas, to the improvement of natural conditions and to the reduction of European dependence on food and energy. European regions are strongly concerned by the current reassessment of CAP and the future of RD policy. This page will provide you with some of the most relevant information on actions undertaken by the EU in the field of agriculture and rural development, as well as on the AER positions and conferences devoted to these issues.
Andalucia's MED project : search for partners
The General Directorate of Rural Development of the Regional Ministry for Agriculture and Fisheries of Andalusia (ES), is about to present a project proposal to apply to the first call for proposals of the MED Operational Programme. The project is entitled TransMed: Transational Commitment for Rural Mediterranean and is proposed as a transnational foresight action, in a context in which on the one hand a considerable experience in rural development has been accumulated, and on the other hand changes are expected in the short and medium term both the in the Rural Development Policy (by means of the “health check” of the CAP) and also in the European Union (EU budget review).
The project TransMed stems from the need to lay the foundations of the future Rural Development Policy and analyse its impact on governance in the Mediterranean.
The partnership is almost ready but new partners could still be included. Should you be interested, do not hesitate to contact the AER Committee 1 secretariat or Juan Diego Iranzo Alfayte in the Regional Ministry for agriculture and fisheries of Andalucia.
Project summary
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RURACT
Launching conference: Limoges (Limousin), 28-29 April 2008.
Subsequent to its experience as the lead partner of the RURAL INNOVA project (INTERREG IIIC), Region Limousin proposes the setting up of an operational network (RUR@CT) in 2008, intended to foster the transfer of experiences between rural regions in Europe. With the reworking of the European Union budget in the offing, particularly its impact on cohesion policy after 2013, the network's ambition is to offer European regions fields of experimentation for an innovative territorial rural development model.
If you are involved in INTERREG IVC project dealing with rural development issues, and whatever the results of the selection will be, we encourage you to get into RUR@CT for benefiting from the methodological tools and database capitalizing good practices and facilitating their operational transfer. Of course you can also forward this message to other Regions in touch with you and liable to be interested in this cooperation framework.
Final Conclusions of the AER Conference on rural development (Oppland-N, 29/02/2008)
Conclusions of Kriti conference (GR), 15 - 16 October 2006
Final conclusions of the Conference on the promotion of competitive regions, 24 November 2005, Devon (UK)
Declaration on the future of rural areas adopted in Bari, 13 - 15 May 2004
AER Interim Report on the revision of CAP, adopted by Committee C in Pecs and amended by the General Assembly, Naples (2002)
The minutes of the meeting of the working group on Rural Development can be found here. Please log on to the intranet if you wish to access the document.
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Conference on regional labels, Kriti (GR), 2006
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Conference on the role of rural areas in the Lisbon Strategy, Devon (UK), 2005
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Conference on traditional quality agriculture and GMO free zones, Brussels (B), 2005
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Rural development
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TERRAGRI
Website proposed by Coldiretti (Italian rural development organisation) and the European Commission on rural areas -
RED (Rurality Environment Development)
Network for sustainable rural development
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TERRAGRI
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Agriculture
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