Read-out of the bilateral meeting between FAO Director-General, QU Dongyu, and the Minister for Agriculture, Livestock and Food of Guatemala, José Ángel López Camposeco

29 July 2021, Rome - FAO Director-General, QU Dongyu, and the Minister for Agriculture, Livestock and Food of Guatemala, José Ángel López Camposeco, had a bilateral meeting today.

The Minister noted that Guatemala, in macroeconomic terms, was not affected as hard by the COVID-19 pandemic as compared to other Latin American countries.

He informed that the Government is elaborating and implementing programmes on water management and soils restoration and conservation, noting that the soils in Guatemala are affected by both drought and floods.

The Minister said that the Government is seeking to develop an agricultural insurance system to support and protect smallholder farmers, considering that Guatemala is highly vulnerable to the impacts of the climate crisis. He also noted that the Ministry of Agriculture of Guatemala will remain mainly focused on increasing food production.

The Director-General agreed with the importance of increasing food production in a more efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable way. He noted that “better production” is the first of the “four betters” for a reason (the other three are: better nutrition, better environment and a better life) and stressed that better production means producing more with less inputs and less environmental impacts.

The Director-General expressed his concerns with the vulnerable situation in the Central American Dry Corridor, and said that FAO aims to work closely with partners to tackle the root causes of migration by improving agricultural resilience and the living conditions of rural people through a long-term strategy.