Mr Dacian CIOLOS new Agriculture Commissioner
Since a few weeks, the European agricultural policy has a new boss: Mr Dacian CIOLOS, Minister of Agriculture of Romania in the years 2007 and 2008. It is expected that he and the other members of the new EU Commission will assume his new job on February 1st 2010. Although Ciolos was among all candidates campaigning exclusively for the Agriculture Department, he is also one of the most suitable for this portfolio.
Mr Dacian CIOLOS was born in 1969 and comes from the Romanian Zalau, about 50 miles northwest of Cluj-Napoca. He studied agriculture with a focus on horticulture. He graduated from the University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine in Cluj. In the 1990s, followed by further studies (e.g. "Production and Rural Development") at the Ecole Nationale Superieure Agronomique (Ensar) in Rennes and many months of practice at the regional organic organisation in Brittany and at the Agriculture Chambre of Aveyron. In 1997 he obtained his Master's degree from the Université Montpellier I. The National Institute (INRA) for agricultural research in Montpellierawarded him a doctorate in 2001.
In 2002-2003 the new agricultural commissioner was Task Manager for Agriculture and Rural Development at SAPARD and furthermore responsible for Romania's EU delegation. From 2005 to 2007 he was appointed as an adviser to the Minister and representatives of the Special Committee on Agriculture of the European Council to the Romanian Ministry of Agriculture. From October 2007 until December 2008 Dacian Ciolos was Minister of Agriculture of Romania and in this capacity as non-party candidate he offered a guarantee for the prevention of corruption in the context of the CAP money flow into Romania, that resulted from Romania’s accession in 2007. As the government lost the election at the end of 2008, he was appointed chairman of the presential committee on agriculture and rural development for the Romanian president.
Mr Dacian Ciolos is a founding member of the organization "Agroecology", which was established in 1995, a globally oriented organization geared to develop sustainable food systems and to promote the application of agroecological research findings to solve global food and agri-environmental problems.
Ciolos became a member of the Groupe de Bruges in the year 2000. In the fall of 2008, still acting as Romanian minister for agriculture, Ciolos, in conjunction with the Groupe de Bruges, organized a conference that was devoted to an issue that is not only extremely important for central Europe, namely "smallholder agriculture". This showed, in contrast to the already here and there rashly expressed opinions about his possible European policy priorities (such as preference for the enlargement countries or large-scale agriculture) not only his personal affinities, but also offers a rather good starting point for the policy priorities of the new EU agricultural commissioner to come to a balanced, fair and common European policy for agriculture and rural areas.
By Dr. Franz Greif, member of the Groupe de Bruges
Climate summit Copenhagen: what does it mean for agriculture?
It is a busy time for world leaders, going from one G8 meeting to another summit, be it on world hunger, the economic and financial crisis or climate change. Currently they are meeting in Copenhagen for the United Nations Climate Change Conference.
As the negotiations are swinging almost on an hourly basis from almost complete deadlock to a possible agreement, the heads of state are gearing up for the grand finale this weekend.
Although agriculture is not on the top of the Copenhagen agenda, the outcomes will have major implications for farmers and food production world wide. First of all, agriculture and notably lifestock, is considered to be one of the major emittors of Greenhouse gasses. Laughing gas, N2O, and methane, are far more persistent green house gases than CO2. A decrease of nitrogen fertilisation is expected in the direction of organic farming.
Secondly, when looking at ways to reduce emissions and/or increase production of renewable forms of energies, agriculture again is considered by some as one of the main actors, the European Commission among them.
It could well be that in the light of the CAP post 2013 debate this increased role of agriculture in combatting climate change, could mean a shift of CAP subsidies from rural development back to agriculture.
Meanwhile the debate is still going on concerning the matter what agriculture actually can contribute and whether the cure is better or worse that the disease. Nobel prize-winning chemist Paul Crutzen, best known for his work on
the ozone layer, and his colleagues suggest for example that microbes convert much
more of the nitrogen in fertilizer to nitrous oxide than previously
thought – 3 to 5 per cent, which is twice the widely accepted figure of
2 per cent used by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to
calculate the impact of fertilizers on climate change.
For rapeseed biodiesel, which accounts for about 80 per cent of the
biofuel production in Europe, the relative warming due to nitrous oxide
emissions is estimated at 1 to 1.7 times larger than the relative
cooling effect due to saved fossil CO2 emissions. For corn bioethanol,
dominant in the US, the figure is 0.9 to 1.5. Only cane sugar bioethanol – with a relative warming of 0.5 to 0.9 – looks like a better
alternative to conventional fuels. This puts the EU biofuels policy in a rather dim light.
In fact, in the wake of the findings comes a recent report prepared by the OECD
for a recent Round Table on Sustainable Development, which questioned
the benefits of first generation biofuels and concluded that governments
should scrap mandatory targets. Richard Doornbosch, the report’s author,
says both the report and Crutzen’s work highlights the importance of
establishing correct full life-cycle assessments for biofuels (Source: http://www.physorg.com/news109581631.html)
An excellent and summarizing overview about the intricate relationship between agriculture and climate change was written by IATP's Jim Kleinschmidt
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