Speaking to the Committee members, the Director of the Association of Agricultural Engineers and Surveyors of Serbia, Prof. Dr Miladin Sevarlic stressed that Serbia has about 2,600 unemployed agronomists compared to only 2000 employed ones. Sevarlic said that the Association aims to enable former assistants-counsellors to secure occasional sources of income, without state assistance, and made some suggestions as to how this could be achieved.

Nenad Katanic, Assistant Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management, said that the Ministry is committed to agricultural development i.e. creating new jobs, but this is exceptionally hard without investment since the budgetary funds are limited and have to be used rationally.

The Committee members went on to talk to the representatives of Subotica City Administration about the protection of agricultural land in the municipality. The dialogue focused on the leasing procedure for agricultural land and lease period, leasing church-owned agricultural land and measures to address the problems of farmed land.

The representative of the State Land Distribution Directorate Snezana Raketa stressed that the land allocation process takes between one and two months, but they will work on speeding up the procedure so that the farmers would not be late for autumn harvest.

The sitting was chaired by the Committee Chairman, Aleksandar Senic.