“It is important that the very-high level meeting on the promotion of new food production models, aiming to assure food security to the world’s growing population without however neglecting the protection of biodiversity and of the environment, be held precisely at the Farnesina tomorrow.” The statement was made by the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Angelino Alfano, in view of the event entitled “Building the sustainable food systems of the 21st Century: the agroecological alternative”, co-organised by the Foreign Ministry’s Directorate General for Development Cooperation and by the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-FOOD).
He went on: “Current food systems risk tilting the system in favour of increasing the quantity of food production, thus undermining the planet’s natural resources and negatively impacting climate change. This is why Italy now encourages the debate over the search of agroecologically diversified systems as the instrument through which to continue, over the coming years, a battle which is crucial for us: eradicating hunger.”
The agenda of the G7 meeting in Taormina will include issues linked to food security and nutrition. The three Rome-based UN food and agriculture agencies play a role of fundamental importance in guiding and orienting this change process, with the full support of Italy.
He concluded: “I take this opportunity to express my heartfelt congratulations to the president of IFAD, Gilbert F. Houngbo, and to the executive director of the WFP, David Beasley, for their recent appointments. On my return from the mission in Lebanon, I will meet at the Farnesina with the director general of FAO, José Graziano da Silva, after which there will be the signing ceremony of the Memorandum of Understanding between the IILA and the FAO on cooperating on the issue of food security and rural development in Latin America.”