Amsterdam, 15.11.2013
Thank you for giving me this opportunity to present my initiative from my small country, that is currently undergoing the real turmoil of crisis.
It is inspiring to see how another not so big country, the Netherlands creates opportunity out of every inch of land, and how your employment rate remains stable and very high.
My primary goal with this initiative is to encourage my nation, especially young people, to respect the land and the country we have, and to find opportunities in this land for future employment.
As former health minister and business woman, and a part time farmer when times allow, i?d like to point out some facts that led me to launch the initiative ?Food for Health and Jobs? in Slovenia.
Among our 500 million Europeans, there is a growing awareness on the interdependance of health, wellbeing, and food. Ironically, we are often nicer and more attentive to our cars than to our bodies.
Facts are that cancer affects 1 out of every 4 people in Europe. There are over 100 million people in Europe suffering from chronic diseases. Hospitals and clinics are too full, and our health budgets emptier by the day.
There is another chronic disease we are facing in Europe, its called unemployment.
We all talk and hear about the unemployment numbers daily, this waste of human potential. There is another waste of potential we don?t often hear. There are over 10 million hectares of unused land in Europe. These 10 million hectares can represent a real opportunity, an opportunity for health, for environment and for employment.
As a testcase of what could be done I started a project called ?Food for Health and Jobs.? We collaborated with two national institutes in researching country-wide what plants or crops would be suitable given the available resources, to preserve genetic diversity through the conservation of local varieties of plants, to increase self-employment and entrepreneurship, and to ultimately improve the quality of people’s lives and health.
We then piloted a competition among individuals, schools and farmers to start growing four key types of crops: the legume bean, garlic, berries and buckwheat. These crops were selected by the national institutes due to their proven positive effects on health, some of them are natural antibiotics or antioxidants. More then that, most of them we simply dont find in our country anymore, due to imports and the fact that people are not aware of possible opportunities in the market.
For this first year we aimed for 30-50 particpants who would start growing these crops and compete for yield, best recipes and innovative application. We were very suprised when within a month 150 participants, schools, farms and individuals, entered this competition. Throughout the year we organized visits and events led by experts in specific fields. Most of the participants planted the chosen crops for the first time, and now will continue to plant them in future seasons. The innovation challenge part of the project brought direct results: 22 new entrepreneurial ideas for foodproducts that can be brought to market, and 27 opportunities for self- employment.
More and more people are looking for healthy food and a healthy environment. As the European People’s Party we cannot afford to just leave this subject for the Greens and Socialists to use. We have to also show citizens that we care about their health and wellbeing.
Our EPP message could be structured in a different way. That we support health and healthy economic growth. Our key question is how to attract educated and skilled young people to the land. How to encourage a greater respect and love for the land? How to convince them that this is THEIR opportunity?
My primary goal was to encourage my nation, young people in particular, to respect the land and the country we have, and to find the opportunities in this land for future employment.
At the European level we also strive to supply people with safe, high quality food while ensuring future employment. For this purpose, it is necessary to take advantage of all the unused potential that the land has to offer while connecting the funds in the next MFF and Common Agricultural Policy to our people and our companies.
In Slovenia, we started our project ‘Food for health and jobs’ as a prototype. We are in the planning phase for the next year, and I?d like to invite you to think with me how to scale it on European level.
Thank you.
