From the 25th to 29th of August, 2014 the annual meeting of European Federation of Animal Science (EAAP) has been held in Copenhagen. The main theme of the meeting was “Quality in Animal Production” dealing with product quality as well as resource efficiency, sustainability, animal welfare and agro-ecology. The program covered various thematic topics, such as animal genetics, animal nutrition, animal management and health and animal physiology and also cattle, sheep and goat, pig and horse production and livestock farming systems. The book of abstracts is available online. 

Mr Andriy Rozstalnyy, FAO Animal Production and Health Officer, Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia, gave a speech entitled Focus on family farm during the Family vs mega farm session organized by EAAP Cattle Commission. Since the UN celebrates 2014 as the International Year of Family Farming the presentation was a great opportunity to raise the profile of family farming and smallholder farming by focusing world attention on its significant role in eradicating hunger and poverty, providing food security and nutrition, improving livelihoods, managing natural resources, protecting the environment and achieving sustainable development in particularly at rural areas, especially since family farming is the predominant form of agriculture in the food production sector in a global perspective.

The 30th meeting of the Assembly of European Regional Focal Point for Animal Genetic Resources (ERFP)  has taken place in the Danish AgriFish Agency at Copenhagen. On the 28th of August, a bilateral meeting has been held between the ERFP secretariat and steering committee and FAO Animal Genetic Resources Branch (AGAG) and Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia (REU) where the possibility of involving National Coordinators on Animal Genetic Resources from the non-EU countries more to ERFP work has been discussed. FAO REU will assist ERFP in communication with National Coordinators on Animal Genetic Resources from the non-EU countries.

On the 29th of August FAO Animal Production and Health Officer and newly appointed Livestock Production Junior Technical Officer attended the first day of the ERFP annual assembly, where several topics were discussed, such as Documentation and information on livestock breeds, Ex situ conservation and other ERFP related subjects.

11 September, Budapest, Hungary