Bilateral meeting with H.E. Daniel Zeichner, Minister of State for Food Security and Rural Affairs of the United Kingdom

Siracusa - On the margins of the G7 Agriculture Ministers’ Meeting in Siracusa, Italy, the Director-General met with His Excellency Daniel Zeichner, Minister of State for Food Security and Rural Affairs of the United Kingdom.

The Director-General congratulated the Minister of State on his recent appointment and conveyed his appreciation for the support of the United Kingdom over the past five years, and previously, and for the close collaboration, especially with regard to the impacts of the climate crisis on agrifood systems.

The Minister of State thanked the Director-General for the opportunity to meet and stated that he looked forward to working together on priority issues. In this regard, the Minister of State referred to the important work of FAO in the Codex Alimentarius.

The Director-General highlighted the importance of Codex in setting global norms and standards in food safety and stressed the importance of this in ensuring high quality food and to ensure competitivity in the agrifood trade markets, especially for developing countries. In this regard, the Director-General emphasized the need to increase support to African countries to improve the capacity of food safety laboratories to ensure compliance with the Codex norms and standards.

The Director-General appreciated the United Kingdom for its voluntary contributions to the Organization, noting it was the 5th largest contributor. The Director-General also noted that the United Kingdom had a lot to offer with regard to best basic science and looked forward to increased collaboration in this regard.

The Minister of State informed that the United Kingdom would be participating in the Science and Innovation Forum under the umbrella of the World Food Forum 2024 and looked forward to the dialogue among the global scientific community.

The pair also discussed the importance of women and youth in agrifood systems and on the need to produce more with less, as also discussed during the G7 meeting, to ensure less agricultural inputs to safeguard the environment and reduce the environmental footprint, while ensuring increased production to feed a growing global population.