Forum series on environmental policies, 2008 - New challenges and opportunities in agriculture

Kapitányné Sándor, Szilvia – Csete, László

Keywords: Climate policy, sustainability, strategies, agriculture, food

The participants of the forum on climate policies covered a number of topics concerning the most important challenges such as the implementation of sustainability, climate change, security of food supplies, availability of drinking water and energy problems. Sustainable development serves above all the survival of humanity, ensuring a healthy environment for the inhabitants. Formed to help this task, the National Sustainable Development Council of Hungary focuses on surveying the various challenges and possible approaches for confronting them. Preparations for climate change, which is closely related to sustainability, are required even if climate change is not taking place, because approaches for coping with the weather pattern up to date and decreases in oil and gas usage warrant it in any case. A structure of domestic agriculture simplified to a few plants to be grown on arable land (cereals, maize, sunflower, rape seed) and a sharp decline of animal husbandry would be greatly unfavourable from the point of view of sustainability. This situation would be further exacerbated by increases in food prices, decreases in food security and increased limitation of water usage. Participants of the forum did not just give their opinions, but they also proposed a number of possible approaches for dealing with problems emphasising the importance of civic initiatives.