Minutes of the Steering Committee meetings and of the 10th General Assembly Meeting

15.2. 2019

Part 1 Meeting of the Steering Committee Prior to the 10th GA of UEAA and Scientific Colloquium 22 November 2018: h 11.00 Attendees: French Academy of Agriculture – M. Thibier, (FR) UNASA/Accademia dei Georgofili – A.M. Stanca, (IT) Czech Academy of Agricultural Sciences -V. Podrazsky, (CZ) Latvia Academy of Agricultural and Forestry Sciences – B. […]

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Part 1 Meeting of the Steering Committee Prior to the 10th GA of UEAA and Scientific Colloquium
22 November 2018: h 11.00

Attendees:
French Academy of Agriculture – M. Thibier, (FR)
UNASA/Accademia dei Georgofili – A.M. Stanca, (IT)
Czech Academy of Agricultural Sciences -V. Podrazsky, (CZ)
Latvia Academy of Agricultural and Forestry Sciences – B. Rivza, (LI)
Swedish Academy of Agriculture and Forestry – K. Niblaeus, (SU)
Georgian Academy of Agricultural Sciences – G. Aleksidze (GE)
Lithuanian Academy of Sciences – Z. Dabkevičius (LT)
Romanian Academy of Agriculture and Forestry – G. Sin (RO)
National Academy of Agrarian Sciences of Ukraine – L. Pylypenko (UA)

Observers: V. Tabără (RO), I. Jelev (RO), M. Slavík (CZ), J. Janse (UA)

1. Welcome address and call to order

A.M. Stanca welcomes all the present members of the SC on behalf of the Accademia dei Georgofili, in its historical council hall. President M. Thibier opens the meeting at 11.00.

2. Recording of the current members
The present members were asked to introduce themselves, names, affiliation and the countries they represented.

3. Approval of the Agenda
Approved

4. Approval of the minutes of the September 28th 2017 meeting held at the Liaison Office of the Tuscany Region in Brussels
Unanimously approved

4-a Professor Scaramuzzi, the founder of UEAA, received the council hall to greet the participants.

5. Planning and schedule of the 10th UEAA GA in Florence

• SC Approval on the candidates for President (A.M. Stanca – UNASA / Accademia dei Georgofili – IT) and Vice President (G. Aleksidze –Georgian Academy of Agricultural Sciences – GE).
  Unanimously approved

M. Thibier – According to the UEAA Charter, members can sit in the SC for a maximum of 6 (six) years. Some of the current members have been in the SC for 6 (six) years already, he suggests to extend the permanence of this members for additional 2 (two) years in order to give them the chance to prepare their successors.
This will be a motion for the afternoon meeting (GA). SC members all agree.

A.M. Stanca adds that in the Charter the role of the Past President within the SC is not evident, he proposes for the Past President (now M. Thibier) to be part of the SC for the upcoming 2 (two) years and attend the meetings. They all agree.
This will be another motion for the afternoon meeting (GA) – If the motion will be approved, the future President (UNASA / Accademia dei Georgofili) will take care of adding this to the Charter.

• Special attention to the future Past President’s speech
  M. Thibier – Many thanks to all the members of the SC.
  The job that the Czech company which took care of the UEAA website did, was very good and effective, it would be ideal to keep working with the same company, to prevent data and documents to get lost in transitioning from one company to another (as it happened in the past with the old website, that was not possible to retrieve).
• Special attention to the report of the Agricultural Education commission report
  M. Thibier – Unfortunately J.P. Bastié – in charge of this – was not able to participate to the 10th GA since he is overseas for research. M. Thibier will report for him in the afternoon’s GA session.
  J.P. Bastiè did an excellent job. In the afternoon the GA will need to decide what to do with the Agricultural Education Commission, whether to maintain it or dismiss it. M. Thibier suggestion is to continue with the work, J.P. Bastié is willing to continue his electronic working group.
• Special attention to the new President’s speech
  A.M. Stanca speaks about Michele Pasca-Raymondo, president of the Brussel’s section of Accademia dei Georgofili, he could link the activities of UEAA with EU people and Institutions in Brussels. He could support the Agricultural Education Commission to have connections with the EU institutions. They all agree.
• Special attention to the future of the UEEA web site
  M. Thibier requests to provide continuity with the handling of the UEAA web site by renewing the contract with the same company that has handled the web site until now.
  Unanimously approved.

M. Thibier – There were not enough contributions to the UEAA website, UEAA is a unique opportunity for the discussion of specific topics, there was some interaction but all the members should try to make the website livelier.

A.M. Stanca – Agrees and stresses that the UEAA website is an opportunity for all the European Academies to be present internationally, all the activities carried out within each Academy should be integrated in the UEAA website and should be discussed with other Academies. He would like for the different Academies to be more effectively in touch and to share the research experiences.

K. Niblaeus – Agrees and says that all of the members should have done more, she had several ideas but the problem was that she could not do the herself and the people her Academy are always very busy, she thinks that before leaving Florence, some concrete plans, about the necessary improvements, are made.

• Updating of the members
  M.Thibier – it is a hard work, his Presidency was lucky because the former President Country (Czech Republic) did an excellent job with creating a list of contacts. Contacts do change very quickly and e-mail addresses change often. This has been on stand-by for the moment, it is time to check, search and update the contacts list, country by country.

6. The program of the 10th GA Meeting
A.M. Stanca goes through the program of the following two days.

One of the speakers of the first day of Assembly will be Kerstin Rosenow, from the DG AGRI European Commission, it is a great opportunity to have her, it will be a great chance to ask her to organise the work package on the Extension/Dissemination, UEAA could coordinate – it is ambitious but it will be worth trying.
A.M. Stanca stresses the importance of A. Ricroch’s Paper regarding Genome Editing. There will be a motion in tomorrow’s UEAA GA to approve A. Ricroch’s Paper.

7. Plan of action for the next Presidency 2018-2020 and general discussion
A.M. Stanca:
1) The Club of Bologna, asked UEAA to organise a meeting on Sustainable Agriculture Mechanisation in Europe, involving all the European Academies and the request was accepted by M. Thibier.

2) Three important points for the future for sustainable agriculture: the use of nitrogen, the use of water and the use of phosphorus; we can add the so called “integrated pest management”. We should organise something about this, propositions will be submitted to the SC.

M. Thibier says that next year (2019) there should be a mid-term steering Committee meeting, it would be ideal if this meeting could happen in Brussels and he will prefer to discuss about education.
The next General Assembly meeting will happen in 2020 but it’s not necessary to decide right away on what this meeting will be focused.

A.M. Stanca stresses that it is important to discuss about mechanisation, he suggests to have a meeting in Spring 2019 on “sustainable agriculture mechanisation in Europe” and to schedule in Fall 2019 a second meeting in Brussels about Education and the use of nitrogen, the use of water and the use of phosphorus and integrated pest management.

In 2020 there will be the G A meeting organized by G. Aleksidze (GE); it is important to decide what will be the next year theme.

G. Aleksidze says that mechanisation is a very interesting topic and very relevant for his region and area.

The SC agrees on having two EUAA meetings in 2019, the first would be focused on Mechanisation, it will take place in Spring 2019 and it will be held in Florence. The second will happen in Brussels with Michele Pasca-Raymondo as the organizer, in close association with JP Batié and It will be focused on Education. All agree.

A.M. Stanca requests to have the use of nitrogen, the use of water and the use of phosphorus and integrated pest management as side topic. It will be discussed.

A.M. Stanca suggests to have two meetings also in 2020, a final meeting in Fall and a second mid-term meeting (on a subject to be determined) in Spring, involving more the other countries. He believes that every 6 (six) months there should be something.
They will discuss about it.

Many thanks to all the SC members.

President M. Thibier closes the meeting. The meeting was completed at 12.10.

Part 2 Meeting of the 10th General Assembly of UEAA
22 November 2018: h 14.15

Attendees: 21 members from
Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Georgia, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Sweden, Ukraine, United Kingdom.

1. Welcome address
M. Thibier welcomes all the participants and leaves the floor to A.M. Stanca

The meeting starts at h: 14.15.

A.M. Stanca welcomes everyone to the Accademia dei Georgofili and offers M. Vincenzini’s – President of the Accademia dei Georgofili – greetings. Unfortunately he could not participate to the Assembly.

Respects are paid to G.P. Maracchi, sadly no longer with us. One minute of silence.

He thanks M. Thibier for the brilliant work of the past two years and for creating a Link between The Academies and EU, also he thanks him for helping organising this meeting and for all the past and future advises, it was difficult to pick up G.P. Maracchi’s work.
Follows a short introduction of the Accademia dei Georgofili –Meaning of the name, history and organisation, members of the Accademia dei Georgofili, National and International Sections. The Georgofili historical archives, services, awards and recognitions.

2. Tribute to Giampiero Maracchi
Antonio Raschi remembers Giampiero Maracchi: his work and his life.

3. Opening Ceremony
Starts at h: 15.05
M. Thibier reads his President’s report.

Administrative Duties:

Nomination of the New President, Michele Stanca is nominated New President of the UEAA – Approved and applause.

As Vice President, the Steering Committee proposes Professor Guram Aleksidze (GE) – Unanimously Approved and applause. Congratulations

Motion: The Charter says that usually the members should not sit in the Steering Committee for more than 6 (six) years, the SC this morning decided to make an exception for several reasons, including the fact that G.P. Maracchi passed away. Therefore we propose to allow those who have already been in the SC for 6 (six) years, to stay and stand for another 2 (two) years – Approved and applause.

The members of the 2018/2020 SC are:

1) New President Antonio Michele Stanca – UNASA/Accademia dei Georgofili (IT)
2) Past President – Michel Thibier – French Academy of Agriculture (FR)
3) Vice President – Guram Aleksidze – Georgian Academy of Agricultural Sciences (GE)
4) Z. Dabkevičius – Lithuanian Academy of Sciences – (LT)
5) Valeriu Tabără – Romanian Academy of Agriculture and Forestry (RO)
6) V. Podrazsky – Czech Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CZ)
7) Baiba Rizva – Latvia Academy of Agricultural and Forestry Sciences (LI)
8) Kristin Niblaeus – Swedish Academy of Agriculture and Forestry (SU)
9) Ieroslav Gadzalo – National Academy of Agrarian Sciences of Ukraine (UA)
10) Andrew Lazenby – Royal Agricultural Society of England (UK)

Andrew Lazenby introduces himself.

Steering Committee Election – Unanimously Approved

M. Thibier hands over the Presidency to A.M. Stanca the Presidency. Applause.

Beginning of the scientific part.

Chair: Professor Antonio Michele Stanca

• M.Thibier – reading of J.P. Bastiè report

Michele Pasca Raimondo will the new delegate of the Accademia dei Georgofili in the Agricultural Education Commission.

Many thanks to J.P. Bastiè for his work.

The GA unanimously approves that J.P. Bastiè continues his research

• Kerstin Rosenow – The role of EU in the dissemination to farmers
• A.M. Stanca – The dissemination of Science and Innovative Technologies to farmers in Italy
• Baiba Rivza – Latvia Farmers Education 2030 reality and challenges (see collection of abstracts)
• Maria Karlsson – The Swedish Education System

Conclusion of the Afternoon Section at h: 18.25

Part 3 Meeting of the 10th General Assembly of UEAA
23 November 2018: h 09.30

Attendees: 18 members from Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Georgia, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Sweden, Ukraine, United Kingdom.

Chair: Professor Marco Bindi

1. Welcome address and call to order
President A.M. Stanca welcomes the participants to the second day of work of the GA and introduces Chairman Marco Bindi to the audience.

2. Oral Presentations (see Abstract Book of the Colloquium)

• Andrew Lazenby (UK): main statement: The main challenge is not to educate the 5% of the population in farms but the remaining 95% of the population”.
• Agnes Ricroch (FR) – The agricultural education system in France – A system of the French ministry of Agriculture and Food
• Agnes Ricroch (FR) – Safeguard Plant Genome Editing – Opinion Presentation

Dr Ricroch reads a motion that is proposed to the UEAA Assembly.Unanimously approved and hece is the official UEAA position on to safeguard plant genome editing.

Approval of A. Ricroch Document by UEAA GA
Approved at h 10.49

Following: request to upload the Opinion on the UEAA Website ASAP and to spread it within the National Academies (NA).
In addition to this, each NA is encouraged to share all the existing documents related to this topic with UEAA to be approved in order to be uploaded on the UEAA website and to be published.
Approved

• Milan Slavík (CZ) – Agricultural and forestry education in the Czech Republic – History, nowadays and future
• Zenonas Dabkevičius (LT) – Formal and Non-formal Education of Farmers in Lithuania
• Ioan Jelev, Valeriu Tabără (RO) – Romania’s Agricultural Research and Education

3. Conclusions and perspectives

Chairman Professor Marco Bindi concludes the workshop underlining the key messages of all the presentations (of both working days). Future topics to exploit and to work on will be, or will continue to be, Sustainable Development, Education Improvement, e-learning and distance learning, Training for farmers, and the Increment of the number of farmers with high level degrees.

M. Thibier thanks the Accademia dei Georgofili for hosting the 10th UEAA GA and wishes the best to the new President, A.M. Stanca.
President A.M. Stanca thanked all the members and wished them a nice and safe trip back home.

The meeting was closed at 12.15

Part 4 Meeting of the Steering Committee
23 November 2018: h 12.20

Attendees:

President: UNASA/Accademia dei Georgofili – A.M. Stanca, (IT)
Vice President: Georgian Academy of Agricultural Sciences – G. Aleksidze (GE)
Past President: French Academy of Agriculture – M. Thibier, (FR)
Czech Academy of Agricultural Sciences -V. Podrazsky, (CZ)
Latvia Academy of Agricultural and Forestry Sciences – B. Rivza, (LI)
Lithuanian Academy of Sciences – Z. Dabkevičius (LT)
Romanian Academy of Agriculture and Forestry – V. Tabără (RO)
National Academy of Agrarian Sciences of Ukraine – L. Pylypenko (UA)
Swedish Academy of Agriculture and Forestry – K. Niblaeus, (SU)

Observers: I. Jelev (RO), M. Slavík (CZ), J. Janse (UA), A. Ricroch (FR)

1. Welcome, call to order
President Stanca and Past President Thibier welcome again all the members of this SC.
The meeting was opened at h: 12.20

2. Business arising from the General Assembly meeting.
President A.M. Stanca wishes to be informed of the dates of Annual Opening Ceremonies of the National Academies, he will be present if possible.

A.M. Stanca intends to write to the Italian Ministery of Agriculture, Environment and Education to represent UEAA in Europe.

It is important to contact other Academies and invite them to participate to the work of UEAA, more members equals to more strength to be more relevant in the governmental decisions.
K. Niblaeus will contact other Academies, especially in the Netherlands and in Germany.
A.M Stanca wishes to involve Academies of the Mediterraneum area, including North Africa (Tunisia and Morocco)
G. Aleksidze wishes to involve Academies of Caucasian countries such as Armenia and Azerbaijan.

M. Thibier remembers to verify all the UEAA contacts and mailing list in order to be more effective with the future communications and invites the President Stanca to write a letter regarding this two-days meeting to forward to all the Academies that did not participate to keep them informed.
M. Thibier stresses once again the importance of renewing the contract with e-fractal (UEAA Web Site)
A.M. Stanca comments that this will be decided as soon as possible with the Governing Body of the Accademia dei Georgofili.

A.M. Stanca informs the SC that Michele Pascal Raimondo accepted to be part of the UEAA Agricultural Education Commission.

The UEAA agricultural education commission was confirmed and shall continue working.

The location and topic of the 2020 meeting will be discussed in 2019.

3. Adjournment
President Stanca thanked all the members and wished them a nice and safe trip back home.
The meeting was adjourned at h: 12.35