At its eighth sitting, held on 10 March, the Agriculture Committee considered the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Water Management’s Work Programme for 2008, with a special focus on legislative activity and the Ministry’s Information on the drafting of an agricultural and rural development strategy.

The sitting was chaired by the Committee Chairman, Radoslav Milovanovic, and attended by the State Secretaries in the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Water Management, Milan Petrovic, Ljubisa Dimitrijevic, Danilo Grubic, as well as Assistant Ministers Dobrivoje Sudzum and Dusan Protic.

State Secretary Milan Petrovic briefed the Committee members on the current results of the Ministry’s work in the agrarian field and briefed them on the agrarian policy for 2008. According to Petrovic, direct subventions into agricultural production will be of particular importance this year, as well as the plan for short-term and long-term loans to agricultural producers. He also presented the Information on the drafting of an agricultural and rural development strategy in Serbia to the Committee members, with a projection of agrarian development until 2013.

Assistant Minister of Agriculture, Dusan Petrovic briefed the members of parliament on the bills the Ministry has prepared which will be included in the procedure of the next convocation of the National Assembly. These are first of all bills on plant health, food safety, amending and modifying the Law on agricultural land, on wine, brandy and alcoholic beverages and on agriculture and rural development.