THE AGRICULTURE Minister and high-ranking officials from 43 European member countries of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) met in Nicosia yesterday for three days of deliberations on the state of agriculture and food security in the region.
President Clerides opened the 23rd session of the FAO Regional Conference for Europe, declaring, “The basic mandate of this organisation is to work in such a way as to free humanity from the problem of hunger and malnutrition.”
He acknowledged that agriculture has traditionally been one of the most important sectors of the economy of Cyprus, adding, “The importance of agriculture however, has gradually declined, both, due to the natural trend observed everywhere, as other sectors began to grow very fast, but also due to severe shortage of water, excessive land fragmentation and severe competition from tourism for scarce fertile land and labour.”
FAO Director-General Dr. Jacques Diouf emphasised the three fundamental food security issues to be addressed in Nicosia: preparations for the World Food Summit on food safety and Europe’s desertification problems.
He reminded the conference delegates of the 800 million people in the world suffering from malnutrition and reaffirmed the target set by the World Food Summit 1996 of reducing the number of hungry people to less than half by 2015.
Dr Diouf acknowledged European support against world hunger but maintained, “Europe could do better and more: crop and livestock farmers and fishermen in the less advanced countries must be helped by investment and technology transfer.”
The Director-General also emphasised the number of food-safety related problems, which have placed consumer health in jeopardy recently, and hampered trade both within the region and with other regions of the world.
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