madam president i would also like to thank the rapporteurs for their diligent and very efficient work in what is a difficult task and speak specifically on the issue of the ombudsman's office where there will be an increase of almost six in the budget
this we believe is appropriate recognising that half of this may not be required if there is no actual change in the office after the elections in two thousand and nine
i think we should also recognise that there has been some work within the office of the ombudsman to reorganise staff and resources in a more efficient way
while i am on my feet as a member of the committee on agriculture i should just like to say that the issue of food aid and i say this also to the public who are gathered here is something which touches people really deeply
i think that the public would like us to help in a generous way with food aid
i can understand that there are budgetary concerns rightly so about the rules
perhaps this says something about the work we do in the background before we pronounce so that we do this in a good way and send out the proper message to the public that we are supporting the developing world and the hungry and the needy
but it is also worth pointing out that our development aid in the past did focus on agriculture and food production as other speakers have mentioned and tragically in latter years we have drawn away from looking at the importance of production agriculture in the developing world
perhaps we are missing that point here too in the european union
if this food crisis has done one thing it has alerted us to the fragility of food production and the need to nurture it within the developing world
finally on this particular point a colleague of mine esther de lange and i are supporting a pilot project to link up young farmers in europe and the developing world
i think out of this we might see some good results because they need help and we need to understand their plight
