While world leaders were gathered in Davos this week for the annual economic think tank, agriculture has its own lower profile version in international green week in Berlin. Although the event has been around since the 1920s, it is only in the last decade that it has really came to prominence.

It is now an occasion where the great and good of the world's agriculture assemble and Brussels virtually decamps there for the ten days in January each year.

Mainstream agriculture event

Although it is a “green” week, it is very much a mainstream agriculture event. It combines a huge political gathering with ministers and officials meeting alongside a huge commercial trade exhibition.

It now attracts 1,550 exhibitors and almost 400,000 visitors during the ten days of the event in January each year.

EU Agriculture Commissioner Phil Hogan, who is the keynote speaker at the Irish Farmers Journal Navigating Global Trade Conference in Dublin on Friday 27 January, spoke at an opening session on Thursday this week.

Like British Prime Minister Theresa May on Brexit, Commissioner Hogan’s speeches are scrutinised for clues on his thinking on the next CAP and a clear line of thinking is starting to emerge ahead of the formal consultation. Again he is referring to farmers as being the foot soldiers of rural environmental policy and he warned that EU citizens have to expect that farmers have to be paid for delivery of enhanced environmental controls. Hogan will also attend a gathering of agriculture ministers this weekend in the margins of the event.

First agriculture and fisheries in Brussels

The political gathering of agriculture ministers moves on to Brussels on Monday with the first agriculture and fisheries minister’s council of the Maltese presidency in Brussels on Monday. While the Maltese presidency will be outlining its work programme, Commissioner Hogan will again have a central role updating ministers on international trade, which is hugely topical at present.

It won't just be Brexit that is the issue, talks on a free trade deal with New Zealand (NZ) are about to begin and EU farming interests are concerned, with the Poles already putting down a marker on access for NZ dairy products.

He will also have a discussion on the cumulative assessment on the impact of trade deals on agriculture, carried out by the EU joint research council before Christmas. This is the most-effective tool at the disposal of the EU agriculture lobby against giving greater access to the EU for external agricultural products, particularly beef.

This Irish Farmers Journal will be in attendance at the council in Brussels with reports and podcasts published from the event.

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