Director-General meets with Chair of Solar Impulse Foundation

11 December 2019, Madrid - FAO Director-General QU Dongyu met with Bertrand Piccard, the chair and founder of Solar Impulse Foundation, an initiative that aims to find profitable opportunities to protect the environment to discuss prospective collaborations.

Piccard, a pilot who designed the first solar-powered airplane able to fly perpetually without fuel, emphasized his enthusiasm to cooperate with FAO, suggesting his group’s specialty in finding ecology-friendly business opportunities offers a useful match to the Organization’s expertise in scaling up production systems.

Feeding the people and protecting the planet are two fundamental needs, he said.

Solar Impulse Foundation is eager to work with FAO to share its findings and put them into a big portfolio of projects along with others that FAO is developing or implementing.

The Director-General noted that the global scenario today has evolved over the decades, and today FAO’s efforts are highly geared to finding ways to feed people without deteriorating the environment. Innovative thinking is required, and digitalization and innovation have important role to play within the ultimate framework of using natural resources more efficiently, he added.

The Director-General emphasized the importance of tackling food insecurity, noting that FAO’s new Hand-in-Hand Initiative is targeting the poorest countries where hunger risks are most prevalent.