UN General Assembly President Muhammad-Bande and FAO Director-General stress small-holder farmers’ key role in achieving the SDGs

26 September 2019, New York – FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu and Tijjani Muhammad-Bande, President of the 74th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, agree that small-holder farmers, particularly those in developing countries, must be supported in efforts to rid the world of hunger and poverty.

Qu and Muhammad-Bande met today on the side-lines of the UN General Assembly for talks that focused on mobilizing international support to transform the agricultural sectors and food systems to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

Muhammad-Bande pointed to the need to scale up efforts to ensure food security for all, while at the same time safeguarding environmental resources. FAO has the expertise and knowledge base to help countries with this, he noted.

Qu said he appreciated the UN General Assembly President’s concern for the problems faced by small-scale farmers. He also outlined FAO’s new Hand-In-Hand Initiative which prioritizes targeted work that benefits people in the world’s most vulnerable regions including small island developing states, least developed and landlocked countries.

Both parties agreed that investments in innovation and technology are required to ensure that farming can be made more attractive to young people and that together they would explore ways to rally more support from governments, the private sector and international bodies including those in the UN system, to achieve this.