He was speaking after a meeting with Agriculture Minister Petar Cobankovic, chief European Union accession negotiator Vladimir Drobnjak, chief agriculture negotiator Ruzica Gelo, and Croatia's advisor on the EU accession process, Franz Fischler.
Sanader underlined the importance of agriculture in the negotiations and the need to make Croatian agriculture competitive on the European and world markets.
He said Croatia wanted to achieve the results of other countries which joined the Union in the last enlargement round, such as Poland, whose agriculture he said profited from accession to the EU.
Sanader commended the negotiating team on agriculture and underlined that their approach must be offensive.
He said Croatia wanted to be ready for the changes ahead and draw as much money as possible from the pre-accession funds at its disposal, like the EUR25 million available this year from the SAPARD programme.
Minister Cobankovic said the multilateral analysis of the adjustment of Croatian legislation on agriculture and rural development to EU standards had been completed and that bilateral screening was expected to start on January 31.
The multilateral screening of fisheries is expected to start in mid-February and that of food safety and phytosanitary protection in mid-March.
To make the whole process more transparent, he announced for late February or early March a forum of ministry representatives from EU countries and representatives of food manufacturers and associations.
The minister said a strategic programme for agricultural development was expected to be ready by late June and that everyone would be asked to reach consensus on it.
Fischler urged the agriculture sector to engage in the discussion on the strategy, saying that only if all interested parties participated in defining clear positions could the negotiations be successful.