“Only knowledge-based development and cooperation that transcends borders can offset the discrepancy between the demand for increased agricultural output and environmental sustainability”, the Deputy State Secretary for Agricultural Economy stressed as a professional forum.
At the “Sustainability and Agriculture, BASF Agro Solutions” conference, Zsolt Feldman stressed: “The primary goal of the modern agricultural economy is to create social prosperity, but this poses many challenges to agriculture, including the fight against climate change, the preservation of natural water bases and maintaining biodiversity”.
Europe’s food economy, which is also being supported by various funding systems, is one of the largest agricultural and food exports in the world today, but the growth of global markets represents a major challenge to the competitiveness of traditional European agriculture. Precision farming and digitalisation could be the keys to achieving an economically viable and efficient agricultural production that also manages its resources in a sustainable manner. Because the development of machinery that facilitates precision farming is capable of tangibly reducing the ecological footprint of agricultural production. Mr. Feldman drew attention to preserving soils fertility as one method of sustainably using resources, adding that the risk to human health and the environment posed by the use of pesticides must also be reduced without endangering the protection of plants and plant products from pests and the production of high quality, safe foods. In addition, the establishment of a rotating economy is capable of reducing the negative environmental effects of production processes, within the framework of which the utilisation of by-products plays an important role.
In accordance with the above, in 2015 the Ministry of Agriculture launched the BIOEAST initiative, which is aimed at facilitating the sustainable development of knowledge-based agriculture, aquaculture and forestry within the biomass-based economy in the Central and Eastern European region. “We wish to realise the development of a multi-party network that increases the visibility of specific research areas and research potentials that involve the region, and which facilitates the development of competencies and strategies within this field. Environmental awareness and task relating to climate change play a central role in this”, Mr. Feldman said.