Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52 Page 53 Page 54 Page 55 Page 56 Page 57 Page 58 Page 59 Page 60 Page 61 Page 62 Page 63 Page 64 Page 65 Page 66 Page 67 Page 68EUROPEAN-SEED.COM I EUROPEAN SEED I 29 CAP has also played its role in stabilising agricultural markets and boosting efficiency of agriculture thanks to technological development and better use of inputs. These goals have been, to a large extent, achieved. As we know, during the war and shortly after it, Europe has suffered from hunger and the CAP ensured a common access to high- quality food. However, the sector is experiencing some difficulties due to the lack of balance in agricultural markets. For an extended period of time, an extremely difficult situation has been present within many agricultural markets in the EU. For the last several years global prices of agricultural products have been dropping. Brazil and Argentina have significantly increased their production. All this is happening alongside a dropping demand for food on the part of China and India. The Russian embargo also had its influence on Europe, as it has already been in force for two years. Additional measures are necessary to protect our agriculture. Farmers need to be provided with easy-to-use financial instruments. It is advisable to continue with the policy of active promotion and search for new markets. There is also a need for legislative actions to combat unfair trading practices against farmers in the food supply chain, which are responsible for them bearing the highest costs that result from dropping prices, so that they can enjoy a decent income. THE ROLE AND SIGNIFICANCE OF SCIENCE Since the beginning of CAP, scientific research concentrated mainly on boosting efficiency. Research done on plants was focused mainly on producing higher yields. It is estimated that since the 1940s, there has been a 25 to 50 per cent increase in productivity of EU agriculture. It is also expected that scientific research in this field will provide options for integrating agricultural and environmental objectives, which is highlighted in the EU program Horizon 2020. Research should take into account all the different agricultural systems, including large and small farms, in order to preserve their contribution to the food supply chain, boost their productivity and maintain their role in supplying social and environmental services. In the coming years there is a need for further development in plant breeding. Increasing yields of legumes, meant for protein feed for animals or green feed such as field beans and peas, is yet another important objective. Methods of precision farming are viewed as promising in terms of reducing the amount of some types of inputs used in agriculture, such as fertilizers and even water. However, benefits coming from precision farming cannot be obtained across the entire EU as such techniques are meant for specialised plant breeding in the crops sector and on larger agricultural holdings. For that reason, rural development policy is best suited to aid the introduction of precision farming through individual projects. Scientific research and innovation may indirectly contribute to greater production of food by reducing food waste at the production and consumption stages. It so happens that the most spectacular changes and innovations in the world of science and technology have come to be in the last several decades. One might say that these grand changes have occurred while the CAP has been in effect. During the Millennium Summit of the UN in 2000, the world set for itself some ambitious Millennium Development Goals that promoted combating extreme poverty and hunger as well as a move towards sustainable development and respect for the natural environment. These goals were to be realised before 2015. Despite significant achievements, the realization of these goals proved to be very different in various countries. For that reason, after the year 2015 much broader sustainable development goals are being realized. This example shows that CAP is, in a certain sense, the vanguard of changes in the global agriculture and food supply — we were able to eliminate hunger already in the first years of its functioning and we have already adopted the notion of sustainable development into our agricultural policy. Developmental processes have their local, regional, national, macro-regional and global aspects. Due to the already-mentioned revolution in technology, informatics and communication that serve to speed up globalisation should be looked at from a global perspective. This is true for social problems, nature and climate, financial and banking systems (global crises), different forms of security, and also food security and food safety. The latter is connected to the growing threat of hyper-local, or even global, epidemics. It would appear that the diversity of nature and climate as well as social and cultural differences are currently much more visible in comparison to technology. For example, the newest technological innovations, such as the Internet and smartphones, have very quickly reached even the most remote regions of the world, while limitations stemming from environmental or cultural barriers are not that easy to breach. This diversity has also played a role in terms of creating a world with different means of food production and different diets around the globe. Growing transport possibilities connected with moving food and increasingly better functioning of the global market leads to significant harmonisation of agricultural production and diets, since cereals, milk products and meat are becoming the main agricultural products. This provides an opportunity for securing the availability of food in regions where their production is problematic. AGRICULTURE, CLIMATE CHANGES AND THE ISSUE OF ENERGY Climate changes will probably lead to changes in our agricultural systems, which can pose a threat to production and global food security. Extreme weather conditions such as drought and floods will appear more often and the localisation of production areas will also shift. These issues have been discussed, for example, during the last UN Climate Conference in Paris in December 2015. This would mean that agriculture is expected to further limit the emissions of greenhouse gases, but emissions from agriculture since 1990 have During the Millennium Summit of the UN in 2000, the world set for itself some ambitious Millennium Development Goals that promoted combating extreme poverty and hunger, as well as a move towards sustainable development and respect for the natural environment. Photo courtesy CIAT Scientific research and innovation may indirectly contribute to greater production of food by reducing food waste at the production and consumption stages.