Ljubljana - State Secretary at the Agriculture Ministry Aleš Irgolič attended the annual convention of the European Dairy Association on Friday to present the Slovenian EU presidency's priorities in agriculture. He also spoke of challenges and opportunities the Green Deal and the new CAP brings for the dairy sector.

As part of the common agricultural policy (CAP), resilience and green transition are among the presidency's top priorities, the Agriculture Ministry says on its website.

"At the core of our efforts is seeking sustainable solutions which will sensibly make agriculture part of the systems of natural resources management and which will take into account comprehensive care for rural areas," Irgolič told the participants of the convention via video call.

The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Food thus gave a special focus to the UN summit on food systems, which was held last month in New York.

The summit aimed at encouraging, and raising awareness about, the role of transition to sustainable food systems which will support common efforts to implement Agenda 2030.

As for the dairy sector, the state secretary said milk and diary production is an important sector in the EU in terms of both the economy and society.

With the EU setting itself ambitions goals in nature conservation and climate change, Irgolič expects agriculture, and with it the dairy sector, will contribute to them.

Touching on the preparation of national strategic plans for further development of the dairy sector, he presented the case of Slovenia where milk production is a key agricultural sector and one of the best organised too. As a result, the strategic plan gives it a lot of attention.

Irgolič also discussed topics such as animal welfare, fake food, the EU's code of conduct on responsible food business and marketing practices, geographic designation, organic daily production, and food promotion, the ministry also said.