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Rural affairs funding will be more flexible and accessible under new EU regulations, UK Rural Affairs Minister Jim Knight told an EU Presidency conference yesterday.

Mr Knight told the Agra Europe Conference on Rural Development in Europe that rural development funding had the capacity to deliver a diverse range of benefits for people in both rural and urban areas.

"We should not underestimate the impact of rural development policy and funding on rural life, and the wider effects on the environment and economy," he said.

"Here in England, rural development funding has created or sustained more than 13,000 jobs, supported over 100,000 training days, and supported 80 new products through processing and marketing grants over the past five years.

"We have provided support for converting 150,000 hectares to organic production, creating 47,000 hectares of new woodland, and improving the management of 327,000 hectares of farmland through the Countryside Stewardship Scheme."

Mr Knight said the new EU regulation for rural development, which governs rural development funding, would allow England to keep supporting some of its existing success stories as well as providing greater opportunities to focus on rural development as a whole. "We need to build on our record of success and take full advantage of the opportunity to be more flexible under the new arrangements - focusing on our own priorities as well as EU objectives," he said.

The new Rural Development Regulation was formally adopted by European Agriculture Ministers in September.

The Rural Development Regulation has three priorities, or Axes:

* Competitiveness for the farming and forestry sectors;

* Environmental land management; and

* Wider rural diversification and quality of life.

A fourth, horizontal axis encourages the use of a "bottom up" approach to deliver these priorities.

Mr Knight said that the government was currently developing the new England strategy and hoped to have a draft out for public consultation before the end of the year.

"We want to apply the lessons we have learnt from the current programme to ensure that projects are strategically driven, complement each other, target real need, and can demonstrate sustainability."

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