Biotech Updates

FAO's Diouf Appeals for New World Food Security System

November 21, 2008

Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Director-General Jacques Diouf called for a World Summit in 2009 to “lay the ground for a new system of governance of world food security and an agricultural trade that offers farmers, in developed and developing countries alike, the means of earning a decent living.” He made this appeal during a special session of the FAO’s 191-member-nation governing conference.

“We must have the intelligence and imagination to devise agricultural development policies together with rules and mechanisms that will ensure not only free but also fair international trade,” said the FAO DG. He added that the Summit should come up with $30 billion per year to build rural infrastructure and increase agricultural productivity in the developing world.

The FAO media release is at http://www.fao.org/