GFAR Vice-Chair Raffaele Maiorano organized the 60th Anniversary meeting of ANGA (Giovani di Confagricoltura - the Italian national association of young farmers) at the Confagricoltura headquarters, Rome, on 8 June. The meeting included a range of high profile speakers including UN SDG and climate change action advocate Marc Buckley, Pekka Pesonen, the Secretary-General of COPA COGECA and Jannes Maes, President of the European Council of Young Farmers, who gave inspiring speeches about the state – and challenges of sustainable agriculture and the implications of sustainability for development of European farming. In the afternoon, the focus shifted to how measures and certification of sustainability could create value addition in farming, addressed through roundtables involving senior figures from the European Commission, universities and FAO.
The meeting set out key dimensions and actions required for greater use of sustainability verification in commercial farming in Europe and how these can themselves help ensure greater sustainability of practices. Such discussions help contribute towards GFAR collective action on improving metrics and changing value systems around sustainability in food production around the world.
In his closing statement, Mr. Maiorano highlighted that "we are aware of the key importance of our sector. The model for sustainability that the agri-food sector provides will facilitate measurement of conformity and compliance of agribusiness, which has been impossible thus far. This will allow enterprises to better orient their activities in order to improve sustainability, making them bona fide business ventures."
Read the press release for the meeting (Italian language) on ANGA's website here.
