The features of European agriculture
Agriculture and forests cover the vast majority of our territory and play a key role in determining the health of rural economies as well as the rural landscape. Agriculture still has a valuable contribution to make to their sustainable economic. Farmers perform many different functions ranging from food and non-food agricultural products to countryside management, nature conservation, and tourism. Farming can thus be described as having multiple functions.
- Europe is both a major exporter and the world’s largest importer of food, mainly from developing countries;
- The European farming sector uses safe, clean, environmentally-friendly production methods providing quality products to meet consumers’ demands;
- The EU farming sector serves rural communities. Its role is not only to produce food but also to guarantee the survival of the countryside as a place to live, work and visit;
Europe’s agricultural policy is determined at EU level by the governments of Member States and operated by the Member States. It is aimed at supporting farmers’ incomes while also encouraging them to produce high quality products demanded by the market and encouraging them to seek new development opportunities, such as renewable environmentally friendly energy sources.