Director-General outlines agri-food systems transformation in academic setting
Cremona and Rome – The Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), QU Dongyu, today offered Italian and international students a panorama of contemporary food and nutrition challenges – and a vision of how they might be met.
He was giving the Lectio magistralis – a signal lecture on issues of global resonance – at the new Cremona campus of the Milan-based Catholic University of the Sacred Heart. The small Lombard city, which houses the University’s Agricultural, Food and Environmental Sciences faculty, embodies the farm bounty and gastronomic excellence of the Po river valley, Italy’s most cherished terroir.
Cremona is also the end point of an itinerant campaign designed to showcase sustainability. Titled #InsiemepergliSDG (Together for the SDGs, short for Sustainable Development Goals), the roadshow has been sponsored by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, in collaboration with FAO and other institutions and NGOs. It has alighted in cities across the Peninsula to build community awareness of sustainable development, with local artists painting murals that promote the concept as they anchor urban regeneration schemes.
From 1945 to today
In his virtual lecture from Rome, Director-General Qu drew an arc from the foundation of FAO in 1945, out of the smoking ruins of war, to today’s determination to tackle food security challenges amid a growing climate crisis. He paid tribute to Italy’s century-old vision of food as central to international cooperation – but also the country’s current engagement as chair of the G20 group of leading economies.
Throughout the event – the lecture itself, the introductions and interactive session – the pendulum swung from global to national to local level, illustrating what Qu described as a holistic and partnerships-driven approach to agri-food systems.
On the one hand, he outlined what FAO terms the Four Betters – targeting production, nutrition, environment and quality of life itself – as interconnected macro-areas in need of joined-up international policymaking. “Current agri-food systems are not delivering. Too often, they are creating harmful feedback loops,” Qu said, as he called on governments to adopt enabling policies that harness the power of innovation, technology and big data.
On the other hand, time after time, he extolled Italy’s expertise in marketing its highly regionalized agrifood products. The country, he said, was offering an example to developing nations in how to build out from the local level and move themselves up the value chain.
Specialize and digitalize
Present at the lecture, the Mayor of Cremona, Gianluca Galimberti, picked up on the topic to outline his city’s pursuit of ecological transition in agriculture. Cremona wished to cooperate with FAO in that field, he said, as well as in the more specific areas of zootechnics and agricultural processing science. His intervention illustrated the extent to which – in a world which is now mostly urban – food is increasingly a matter of municipal policy.
The notion of local resilience featured strongly in Qu’s answer to one question from the audience. What, a student from Ecuador asked, was FAO’s strategy for smallholder farmers to improve their livelihoods, particularly in a post-pandemic scenario?
“Concentrate on one product that you have a competitive advantage in,” Qu replied, “whether bananas, or sweet potatoes, or something else. Organize for strength. Standardize production to meet international norms. And,” he concluded,” sell and export through e-commerce.”
Digital entrepreneurship, the audience agreed, was an effective path to better lives for farmers and reduced food losses, benefitting both food security and the planet.