AYIA NAPA, Cyprus, 3 Sep (AP) \u2014 Officials from nine southern European Union countries pledged Tuesday to work together to develop more water-saving technologies in agriculture as the prospect of worsening droughts puts additional strain on farmers and threatens food security.<\/p>\n
The promises came during a gathering in Cyprus of the so called MED9 countries \u2014 France, Greece, Italy, Croatia, Portugal, Malta, Spain and Slovenia \u2014 to address growing water scarcity as a result of climate change, especially in the Mediterranean region, which they say is being affected to a greater degree than other parts of the 27-member bloc.<\/p>\n
The officials also pledged to share technical and practical data and launch joint research programs to make water use as efficient as possible.<\/p>\n
\u201cClimate change is a real threat to food production worldwide, and this risk is even more severe in the Mediterranean area,\u201d Spain\u2019s Agriculture Minster Luis Planas told the meeting. \u201cWe must both fight climate change and, at the same time, adapt the working conditions of our farmers to this new climate situation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cyprus Agriculture Minister Maria Panayiotou warned that Europe last year faced one of its worst droughts and cited local examples of \u201csmart\u201d irrigation systems and technologies that help protect crops, generate power and save water use by 30%.<\/p>\n
Portuguese Agriculture Minister Jose Manuel Fernandes urged for more European Union funding to help finance new water-saving technologies and create new incentives to attract younger people to revitalize an aging farming population.<\/p>\n
French Agriculture Minister Marc Fesneau highlighted latest techniques that help create new crops, able to thrive in harsher climate conditions while Fernandes said so-called genomic research is \u201ctotally different\u201d genetically modified crops that have stirred controversy within the bloc in the past.<\/p>\n
The MED9 officials also urged the EU to come up with a common approach to water conservation while taking into account regional requirements.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs the climate crisis will have a major impact on global food security, climate change adaptation must be placed at the heart of our common policies,\u201d Slovenia\u2019s Agriculture Minster Mateja \u010calu\u0161i\u0107 said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
AYIA NAPA, Cyprus, 3 Sep (AP) \u2014 Officials from nine southern European Union countries pledged Tuesday to work together to develop more water-saving technologies in agriculture as the prospect of worsening droughts puts additional strain on farmers and threatens food security. The promises came during a gathering in Cyprus of the so called MED9 countries […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-247740","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247740\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}