Bilateral meeting with the Minister for Agriculture and Food Sovereignty of France - H.E. Marc Fesneau

Rome - The FAO Director-General, QU Dongyu, met at FAO headquarters in Rome with H.E. Marc Fesneau, Minister for Agriculture and Food Sovereignty of France.

The Director-General thanked the Minister for the longstanding support from France as one of the founding Members of FAO.

The Minister underlined the importance of innovation in agriculture production, as well as innovation of agriculture practices, while taking into consideration the constraints posed by the Paris Agreements on climate change and sustainable water management. The Minister underlined that France could offer scientific knowledge from a number of scientific research institutes. In that respect, the Director-General invited the Minister to use the digital FAO for knowledge-sharing by France with other FAO Members, and for the Minister, as well as French Scientists and other Experts to visit FAO and use FAO as a platform to promote science, innovation and technology, as well as policies.

The pair further discussed different ways to achieve more sustainable and resilient agrifood systems, and for the fundamental need to address the urgent global food security challenges that are exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, the climate crisis, ongoing conflicts and the war in Ukraine.

The Director-General thanked the Minister for the historic contribution made by France to establish the Agricultural Market Information System (AMIS) G20 initiative during the Presidency of France in 2011, which is an important tool to enhance food market transparency and encourage international policy coordination in response to market uncertainty.