The European Commission highlighted the importance of sustainable agriculture and the role of Farm Advisory Services during a webinar organised as part of the European Green Deal Campaign.  The webinar took place on Friday, 4 December 2020 from 16:00 to 18:00 via Zoom and also shared live on EU Infopoint Facebook page. The event was the third in a series of Farm to Fork webinars.

During the webinar Assoc. Prof. Dr. İsfendiyar Darbaz, an expert in veterinary medicine provided an overview of sustainable methods to tackle local challenges in livestock production in the Turkish Cypriot community.  While, Asst. Prof. Dr. İbrahim Kahramanoğlu, an expert on horticulture talked about the past, present, and future situation of sustainable crop production.  Finally, Donald Aquilina, the team leader of the EU funded Farm Advisory Services (FAS) Project explained how farmers can benefit from the EU-funded Farm Advisory Services in the Turkish Cypriot community. Farm Advisory Services (FAS) was established to support the economic development of the agriculture sector by both providing expert advice and facilitating access to funding. The FAS activities represent one component of a larger EU effort to promote rural development and help farmers to increase standards for sustainable agriculture practices. 

Supporting rural development has been a major component of the EU Aid Programme for the Turkish Cypriot community with more than €40 million allocated since 2008. This has been in the form of investment support through a series of grant schemes, technical assistance and capacity building, supplies, as well as providing guidance for the future adoption of EU rules and regulations. Within this scope, the EU supported four Rural Development grant schemes with a total value of more than €15 million and more than 250 projects were finalised under the four schemes to date. Support to rural development still continues with technical assistance on farm advisory services with an overall budget of more than €2 million. Furthermore, approximately €4.5 million has been recently allocated through a grant scheme on support to investment in agriculture and currently 54 grant projects are being implemented under this grant scheme.