Paolo De Castro

Paolo De Castro ( born February 2, 1958 in San Pietro Vernotico, Brindisi ) is an Italian politician of the Partito Democratico (PD) and Member of the European Parliament. Previously, he served as 2006-2008 Agriculture and Forestry Minister in the second cabinet Prodi.

Career

As the son of an agricultural family of entrepreneurs De Castro is familiar from childhood with the agricultural culture of his native region, Salento. So he dealt early with the cultivation of vines, olives, tobacco, cotton and Others and was able to use his passionate interest later to study agricultural science at the University of Bologna. After graduating in 1980, he decided on an academic career and teaches since in his field as a full professor in Bologna.

After first political experiences in the Partito Liberal Italiano at a young age, De Castro joined later in the context of the Christian Democratic Margherita. From 1996 to 1998 he was an adviser to the Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi and took over from October 1998 to April 2000 for the first time the Ministry of Agriculture in the two governments of Massimo D' Alema. Another consultant function for Romano Prodi he had held from June to December 2000, in its time as the European Commission.

From 2001 to 2004 he headed the Institute of Economics nomisma in Bologna and was also chief editor of agricultural scientific journals ( Rivista di Politica Internazionale Agricola and Genio Rurale ). Using the list of electoral alliance The Olive De Castro was elected in April 2006 in the Chamber of Deputies and charged for the second time with the Agriculture Department in Prodi's center-left government.

In the European elections in Italy in 2009 De Castro reached a seat in the European Parliament, where he was elected Chairman of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development. Similarly, De Castro is a member of the Conference of Committee Chairmen and in the Delegation for relations with the United States. As deputy to De Castro 's delegation to the EU-Chile Joint Parliamentary Committee.