The goal of the Summit of the Ministers of Agriculture is to foster cooperation among countries of the Adriatic, Baltic and Black seas in the field of agriculture and rural development. Such enhanced regional cooperation is aimed to better identify common problems and challenges, as well as common opportunities and interests. It is also intended to allow these common challenges to be dealt with more effectively.

Securing feed protein production

The main topic of discussion was securing feed protein production in the Three Seas region. When presenting Poland’s position, Minister Grzegorz Puda emphasised the need to reduce the European Union’s dependency on imports of critical protein feed materials.

“The development of the European production of vegetable protein is one of the key strategic issues. Firstly, it follows from the need for greater food security, less vulnerable to disruption of global supply chains. Secondly, it is an action aimed to address the climate challenge,” Minister Puda pointed out.

The head of the Polish Ministry of Agriculture also pointed out that in the effort to restore protein production in Europe it is important to support cooperation between scientists, protein crop producers and the food and feed industry. Further breeding work on legumes and further varietal experimentation are essential. The main condition set by the feed industry is to produce large uniform batches of seed of the desired quality.

Impact of the CAP on the transformation of agriculture in the Three Seas region

The second topic discussed by the ministers was the impact of the Common Agricultural Policy on the transformation of agriculture and rural areas in the Three Seas region towards a green and digital economy. According to Minister Grzegorz Puda, the reformed Common Agricultural Policy includes strong support for the environment and climate and provides for linking direct payments to environmentally and climate-friendly practices through ecoprogrammes.

“The Common Agricultural Policy supports the creation of smart farming in the EU. Technological revolution and digitalisation present new opportunities for agriculture. Digitalisation can increase the sector’s competitiveness and support efficient, more sustainable agricultural production. In this way, it can contribute to the achievement of more ambitious environmental and climate goals,” the Polish minister pointed out.

Minister Grzegorz Puda emphasised that ambitious targets related to the ecological transformation of European agricultural production require an ambitious budget for the Common Agricultural Policy.

“Polish agriculture and European agriculture in general are dominated by small and medium-sized farms. Therefore, it is crucial to work out a digitalisation strategy that will be tailored to the needs and capabilities of this type of farms as well and will make it possible to partially overcome the limitations related to the spatial dispersion and small economic scale of their agricultural production,” the head of the Polish Ministry of Agriculture explained.

Research and innovation in the field of food systems

The third topic of the Summit covered the challenges of research and innovation related to food systems.

“It is important that research and innovation help us address the challenges of ensuring sustainable agricultural development, in order to protect health, enhance quality of life and protect the environment and climate.  Such an approach requires good cooperation between practitioners, scientists and public administration bodies, but above all it requires defining research directions to meet the challenges faced by the countries of our region,” stressed Minister Grzegorz Puda.

Joint Declaration

As a conclusion to the talks in Krakow, the Ministers of Agriculture signed the Joint Declaration of Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia on the possibility of securing feed protein production in the Three Seas region. The document summarises the common demands of our region in that regard and will be submitted by Poland to the European Commission in order for the voice of the member states of the Three Seas Initiative to be taken into consideration in the work on the EU forum.

After the meeting, Minister Grzegorz Puda, on behalf of the Ministers of Agriculture of the Three Seas region, laid a wreath on the grave of the Presidential Couple Lech and Maria Kaczynski, who tragically died in the Smolensk catastrophe on 10 April 2010. Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski also laid a wreath.

 

^* Austria attended the meeting in the capacity of observer.