FARA & EFARD Consultation on Agricultural Research Programming

The European Commission (DG RTD and DG AIDCO, with DG DEV and DG RELEX) prepares the annual programming of FP7 and FSTP for 2009 and beyond, and is willing to coordinate these programmes.

As a starting point, the Commission began with the coordination of the Thematic Food, Agriculture, Fisheries and Biotechnology of FP7. To do so, the Commission convened 14 - 16 April a workshop in Brussels of European & African experts.

This workshop was organized by FARA and EFARD (European Forum on Agricultural Research for Development), making use of their existing Platform for African – European Partnership on Agricultural Research for Development (PAEPARD). The workshop was supported and facilitated by CTA (ACP-EU Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation, based in Wageningen, the Netherlands).

The general objective of the consultation is to establish priority areas of cooperation to increase the impact of agricultural research and knowledge systems on rural productivity, poverty reduction, food security and sustainable management of natural resources. More specifically, it is to identify targeted research topics and activities, taking into account the 10 broad priority areas to be funded in 2009 and beyond by FP7-FAB and the FSTP global non-CGIAR components in order to assure coherence, complementarily and synergy among the two programmes.

The participants were 40 African and European experts from Africa and the EU.

Brussels, 18 April 2008. Paolo Sarfati, DG Development, explains the importance of agricultural research for the EC and the areas where it currently focusses.


Reference:
CTA: FARA & EFARD Consultation on Agricultural Research Programming for FP7-FAB and FSTP