“There is no problem with the country’s food adequacy due to the war in Ukraine,” said Minister of Rural Development and Food George Georgantas during a ELGO-DIMITRA press conference on education and training in the agricultural sector.
Mr. Georgantas added that the Ministry of Regional Development and Infrastructure is in cooperation with the country’s importers, to expand the markets that are already used, in order to cover the 250,000 tons of cereals imported from Russia and Ukraine.
He pointed out that during the last two years the country’s agricultural trade balance, after many years, was positive by 500 million euros “and it is something that must be continued for both exports and food adequacy”.
He added that a request would be sent to the European Commission requesting Community support for the cultivation of corn and common wheat, and added that the EU “toolbox” would be announced on 23 March. for the agricultural sector.
The Minister of Rural Development and Food pointed out that the support to the producer of the country “the one who with his effort produces products for consumption and export” will continue.
He noted that agricultural training programs should be based on three pillars, which are climate change, the use of new technologies in agricultural production and ensuring the country’s food adequacy.
More than 14,600 young farmers participated in ELGO-DIMITRA’s training programs, with a budget of 14.5m euros, according to the organisation’s president, Serko Haroutounian.
He added that “increasing production is what is required in the agricultural sector” and noting, among other things, that “the modern farmer has now become an entrepreneur.”
He characterized the education rates of farmers in our country as low, which according to him amounts to 6.8%, when the average in the European Union exceeds 24% and in the Netherlands reaches 80%.
For his part, the CEO of ELGO-DIMITRA, Panagiotis Hatzinikolaou stated that 829 training programs were carried out in 119 parts of the country, by a total of 539 trainers. They lasted 20,725 days of training and received certificates of attendance from 14,570 young farmers.
Of the total 829 programs, 581 were for crop production, 206 for animal production and 42 for mixed programs.
According to the data presented by Mr. Hatzinikolaou, the “champion” region in terms of the number of programs and the number of trainees, emerged that of Central Macedonia, where a total of 175 programs were implemented in which 3,145 producers participated.
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