Account of UEAA Steering Committee and General Assembly Meetings,
Bucharest, Romania, 25-27 June 2006
According to the constitution and the decisions made during the Moscow and St. Petersburg meetings on 24-25 June 2004, as well as the Steering Committee meeting in Paris, October 11th 2005, the 4th General Assembly of the Union of European Academies for Science applied to Agriculture, Food and Nature and the associated Workshop on "Soil Fertility and the Future of Agriculture in Europe", were hosted by the Romanian Academy of Agricultural and Forestry Sciences "Gheorghe Ionescu-Sisesti". The events included the UEAA Steering Committee meeting on June 25, the Scientific Plenary Session and UEAA General Assembly on June 26, as well as the visit to the National Research and Development Agricultural Institute, Fundulea, on June 27.
The following DELEGATES were present at the STEERING COMMITTEE MEETING on 25.06.2006:
1. Acad. Gennady ROMANENKO - President of the Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences (RAAS) and President of UEAA.
2. Acad. Cristian HERA - President of the Romanian Academy of Agricultural and Forestry Sciences "Gheorghe Ionescu-Sisesti" (AAFS - ROMANIA) and Vice-president of UEAA.
3. Prof. Jean-Marc BOUSSARD - FORMER UEAA PRESIDENT and FORMER PRESIDENT of the French Academy of Agriculture (AFA - FRANCE).
4. Prof. Fiola Polito IMBERCIADORI - Representative of the Unione Nazionale della Accademie Italiane per la Scienze applicate allo Svillup dell'Agricultura, all Sicurezza Alimentare e all Tutela Ambientale (UNASA - ITALY).
5. Prof. Huub SPIERTZ - Representative of the Royal Dutch Society for Agricultural Sciences (KLV - THE NETHERLANDS).
6. Prof. Volker ROEMHELD - Representative of the Deutschland Dachverband Agrarforschung e.V. (DAF - GERMANY).
The meeting was also attended by Dr. Olga GLUKHOVTSEVA, head of RAAS International Cooperation Dept. and Dr. Cristian KLEPS, head of AAFS International Cooperation Dept.
During the meeting, Acad. Gennady ROMANENKO, President in charge of UEAA presented a report describing the activity of the Union from 26.06.2004 (date which the 3rd GENERAL ASSEMBLY of UEAA took place in Moscow and St. Petersburg) to the 4th GENERAL ASSEMBLY. Further on, the participants discussed various possibilities to improve the activities developed by UEAA, acceptance of new members who sent their representatives to Bucharest (Sweden, Norway, Bulgaria and the Republic of Moldova) and proposals for the next UEAA General Assembly Meetings (Wageningen-THE NETHERLANDS in 2008 and Hohenheim-Germany in 2010). Final decisions on these issues will be made at a later stage when the proposals are confirmed by KLV, The Netherlands and DAF, Germany.
The morning of 26.06.2006 was dedicated to the SCIENTIFIC SYMPOSIUM on "Soil fertility and the future of agriculture in Europe".
Foreign guests representing 7 UEAA member countries and 4 candidate countries, representatives of AAFS research units, professors from UASVM Bucharest, representatives of the production sector, non-governmental organizations and media participated.
Following Acad. Cristian HERA's OPENING SPEECH, the Symposium went on with a SESSION with 8 LECTURES and 12 POSTERS. The abstracts are in the proceedings of the Symposium and the publication of a separate volume with the PRESENTED LECTURES AND POSTERS will be published during 2006, in the Academy Publishing House.
The UEAA GENERAL ASSEMBLY took place in the second half of the same day, when 4 new members were elected: The Swedish Royal Academy of Agricultural and Forestry Sciences (KSLA), The Norwegian Research Institute for Agriculture and Environment (Bioforsk), Academy of Sciences from the Republic of Moldova and Bulgarian National Center of Agricultural Sciences (NCAS). During the same General Assembly, according to UEAA statute, Acad. Cristian HERA was elected President of UEAA for the next 2 years.
The General Assembly continued with the PRESENTATION OF THE PROPOSALS suggested for the improvement of UEAA activities, consisting of:
- Making all necessary efforts in order to obtain the status of "corresponding body" in the frame of FAO and the recognition by the newly created Standing Committee for Agricultural Research (SCAR) of the European Community. Letters on these issues addressed to Director DIOUF and Director PATERMANN are considered as very useful and will be finalized in the following weeks.
- Promotion of news and information exchanges among Union members by updating the UEAA web site ( www.euracadagri.org) by the Member "in charge" for UEAA Presidency. Romania took this responsibility for the next two years.
- Formulating common points of view in the attention of different European bodies in relation with agro-environmental issues in debate.
- Attracting new UEAA members and selecting the Seminar topics in relation with the agricultural specificity of the host country.
- Encouraging relationships among scientists, especially by attracting the young ones in the Union activities, by participating in consortia of project proposals with agro-environmental topics according to different calls of FP7.
All the proposals were approved by the General Assembly.
The 3rd day of the event was dedicated to VISITING the National Research and Development Agricultural Institute - Fundulea, where the participants could see various experimental plots with wheat, maize, sunflower, and the LONG TERM FIELD EXPERIMENT WITH FERTILIZERS, as well as recent prestigious achievements of the Institute presented in its permanent exhibition center.
Various experimental plots
Permanent exhibition center
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