European Parliament
Ribeiro e Castro (UEN ),
in writing
. –
(PT)
I voted with the rapporteur, in favour of adopting a European Parliament and Council decision on the continuing application of schemes approved in 2000 for a supplementary period of four years. It is a fact that these schemes, both the LUCAS Project (Land Use/Cover Area Frame Statistical Survey) and the MARS Project (Monitoring Agriculture with Remote Sensing), have contributed to a better understanding of areas and crops in the Community. They have contributed to improving measures on land use and land cover, as well as to an understanding of the impact of rural climatic phenomena on harvests and to making yield predictions for the principal crops. The extension of these projects should therefore be encouraged because of the good results which have been achieved and presented by the European Commission.

