Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-01-15-Speech-2-359"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20080115.28.2-359"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Mr President, Commissioner, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, this proposal for a regulation for the introduction of remote sensing via satellite is an interesting one. Michel Debatisse, the French farmers’ leader, put forward a remote-sensing proposal in this Chamber back in the 1990s, the area of application in that case being stock rearing. The idea was to fix microchips in the ears of cattle and sheep, as part of a system for monitoring premium payments and preventing fraud in certain parts of southern France. There had even been a plan for electronic capsules, which cattle would swallow and which would then become attached in a pocket in the intestine, enabling the stock to be identified and counted via satellite.
What we have before us today is something different, although it dates back seven years, to the MARS and LUCAS pilot projects. The concept here entails supplying information about land use and the condition of the ground or crops, in order to forecast crop yields and, at the same time, to manage agricultural markets and produce econometric models.
There is an obvious danger with this aim of gathering information, improving statistics, producing forecasts and, indeed, creating a website: I am tempted to call it the danger of a remote-sensing elite, for the technology will be accessible only to large farmers or very rich regions, and not everyone will be enabled to anticipate prices – a particularly useful facility when the price of grain is rising. Obviously, the ability to anticipate prices several months in advance by predicting the harvest is a highly interesting prospect for the stock markets in Chicago or wherever.
Our rapporteur, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, is right to be particularly interested in the matter of who will benefit from the system, especially as it comes at a price – I believe some ten million euros are involved, albeit spread over five or six years – and these sums will come not from an independent budget line but from an agricultural guarantee fund. The system is certainly worth trying out, or pursuing, Commissioner."@en1
|
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples