European Union to promote ag products, including flowers

The European Commission has approved 19 programs in 14 member states (Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, France, Greece, Italy, Ireland, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovenia, Spain and the United Kingdom) to provide information on and to promote agricultural products in the European Union. The selected programs cover numerous products including flowers, vegetables, fruit and organic products.

The total budget of the programs running between one and three years is 60.6 million euros. The European Union will contribute half of the budget.

“In an open global market, merely producing excellent food and drink is not enough,” said Dacian Ciolos, commissioner for agriculture and rural development. “We need to increase our efforts to explain to consumers the standards and the quality of what EU agriculture puts on the table. EU programs of this sort can really help our producers in an increasingly competitive world.”