17/11/2009

FAO SUMMIT, ZAIA: 20 BILLION $ IMMEDIATELY FOR FARMERS

"To end hunger there are no shortcuts. There are no technological or agricultural revolutions that can replace the need to develop local agricultures rooted in the territories. Even the Ogm, that can be useful in some desert zones, are not the solution of the problem. The solution passes through the development of local economies, instruction, formation, infrastructures and access to water resources. By ourselves we might act quicker, but it is together that we can go farther".

This declared the Minister of agricultural food and forestry policies Luca Zaia continuing his speech today in front of the representatives of Governments, United Nations and other international Organizations gathered for the FAO world summit on food security.

"Italy is giving its contribution. The Government of which I am part - Zaia continued - has put agriculture and food security at the centre of the international agenda. The participants of the Summits of Cison di Valmarino and of L'Aquila have had the merit of putting new lymph into the multiple initiatives that the General Secretary of the United Nations Ban Ki moon and the International Organizations have promoted during this year. They were open to the contributions of many Governments protagonists of the global agriculture and towards civil society and the rural societies of the various continents. As President Berlusconi remembered yesterday, a first concrete  result was obtained with 'L'Aquila Food Security Initiative', around which an immense consent in matter of world food security was established for the first time, with 40 adhesions between G8 Countries, international and regional Organizations, and Partner Countries. Resources for more than 20 billions dollars were committed. President Berlusconi rightly made it clear that these resources must be immediately freed in favour of the farmers, the small ones, so that they can increase the world food production, and that every government must translate in facts the commitments taken in L' Aquila".

"However, finding money is no enough. It is imperative - the Minister explained - to outline the strategies in order to use the founds in the most coordinated and efficient manner. Italy is strongly committed to this effort that constitutes, according to us, the main follow-up of the L'Aquila decisions. We must consolidate the current global Governance process on food security. Italy gives particular importance to the reform of the Committee for Food Security, as a platform to monitor the situation and give concrete ideas on the road to take. A real Governance cannot be done without an effective reform of the FAO and the international organisms of the UN system, those that are directly involved in addressing the issue of Food Security at a global level. Furthermore we must also promote their actions that must more co-ordinated at a global level. This request was made clear within the Council of Ministers of Agriculture of the EU and I confirmed it to the General Secretary of the UN Ban Ki-moon, during the visit I made in the United States last October. It is important to continue going on with this change that must actively involve all the membership and must hold in the due account the requests coming from the representations of the civil society".

"I have read in the Diaries of the great Russian peasant Leo Tolstoy Lion that 'only with agricultural work it is possible to have a rational life therefore a moral one'.  This is my hope - Minister Zaia concluded - as a person and as a representative of my Government: a world that learns to cohabit civilly and humanly".