Drawing together the future of EU agri-food systems

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The Global Food Forum will take place on 14 and 15 October, on a farm close to Milan (Italy).

Organised by the think tank Farm Europe in partnership with Confagricoltura, the event will gather more than 200 top representatives from the European institutions, national administrations, farmers’ organisations, companies and experts, who are coming from all across the EU and are willing to reflect together on the future of European agriculture and food policies.

At a time where both EU agri-food systems and the European political project are shaken by market, diplomatic and structural crises, the Forum will be an opportunity to build a positive, forward-looking and ambitous vision of the future in a truly European spirit.

« The agri-food sector is at the crossroads between huge opportunities and massive pressure. The Forum will offer the possibility to passionate business and political leaders, who believe in the European project, to developp a common vision. Citizens’ expectations, breakthrough technologies and changing consumption patterns are driving a revolution within EU agri-food systems. The best ways to strenghten the European Union is to make sure that our policies, at European level, match the real challenges faced by citizens, farmers and all economic actors on the ground. This is the ambition of the recommendations that will be designed during the GFF2016 on the future of the Common Agricultural Policy and beyond », stated Mario Guidi, the President of the Global Food Forum and Confagricoltura.

During the participatory process, the participants will work on the most pressing issues for the future of the sector : How to keep our agriculture all across the EU? How to improve the resilience of agriculture, and cope better with climate and market risks? How to build truly European policies to improve nutrition and health? How to rebalance the power along the EU food chain? What will be the impact of Brexit on the EU agri-food sectors?

The participants will be invited to reflect and build recommendations together. These recommandations will be presented to all the European institutions, including during an event at the European Parliament in December.