Minister Zaia To Attend the G8 Farmers’ Union
17/03/2009
The G8 Farmers' Union will make a crucial contribution to the agriculture ministers’ G8, which is to be held in Cison di Valmarino, in the Province of Treviso, from 18 to 20 April. Italian Agriculture Minister Luca Zaia voiced this conviction today when announcing that he would be attending the meeting to be held by the leaders of the G8 countries’ major farming organisations, which is to be held in Rome on 19 March. Agriculture, food, the environment and alternative energy sources at this time of crisis will loom large on its agenda. The G8 Farmers' Union meeting is being organised by the Coldiretti (National Federation of Italian Farmers), the main nationwide farming organisation, and is to take place at Palazzo Rospigliosi, the organisation’s headquarters.
The conclusions that the farming organisations’ representatives submit to Minister Zaia will go into the brief drawn up for the heads of state and government ahead of the La Maddalena Summit. Zaia stressed that, by chairing the first agriculture summit, Italy was taking on the responsibility of mapping out a joint route out of the crisis and responding to the world food emergency, restoring a central role in the economy to farm produce and farmers and doing away with the wastage for which a social as well as economic price that could no longer be borne was currently being paid. It was thus a route that had to be mapped out jointly with the farmers’ federations and the whole farming world, strong in the knowledge that the contribution made by the people who represented the farming world’s interests and expectations would be of the utmost value, the Minister emphasised.
The G8 Farmers' Union will be attended by delegates from the national, European and international institutions, including representatives from the embassies, the FAO, the International Fund for Agricultural Development - IFAD, the European Union Committee of Professional Agricultural Organisations - COPA and the European Council of Young Farmers - CEJA. Mayor of Rome Gianni Alemanno will give the opening address. Prime Ministerial Under Secretary Gianni Letta and Agriculture Under Secretary Antonio Buonfiglio will also be attending, in addition to Agriculture Policies Minister Luca Zaia.
