Winter Conference 2021 of the Eco-Social Forum - Q&A Session: How to build an advanced society with green, innovative, competitive and sustainable development

Winter Conference 2021 of the Eco-Social Forum 

Q&A Session:

How to build an advanced society with green, innovative, competitive and sustainable development

 Dr. QU Dongyu, Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

21 January 2021

As delivered

 

Question one: Who are the winners and who are the losers of the digitalization of agriculture and what is the global view on this question?

I appreciate the question. I don’t think we can simply say there is a loser or winner, black or white. We are now facing a complicated world, so you can build up from one to zero, not only one or zero. That’s how I should change the way how to address your question.

Second, I think for FAO or international or multilateral organization, we have to respect the different solutions for different countries, for different regions even. You know, agriculture - it’s not only a process of the economy reproduction, also it’s a biology reproduction. And it’s closely linked with environment, life, nutrition, you name it. So, we are human beings, we are only one small mammal on this planet. So, we have to build up holistic, coherent, collective action. But we have to respect the different kinds of experience and value.

That’s why I come to the strategic point of view – I say the Four Betters. Better production offers a solid foundation. You need to produce more and better. Produce more quantity. And also more diversity. Because in Austria you don’t have a problem with quantity, but you have a lot of commodities depending on import. So, you have to make yourself stronger in certain commodities, producing more and with less input, less side effect on the environment.

At the same time, you have to increase your productivity by innovation, that’s better production, and increases your efficiency. Then you have to sustain your environment. Not only big environment like in macro environment – climate change and so on – but also you have to address local environment and field environment for micro environment, which relates to soil, water, small rivers, and so on. So that’s the micro environment. And then we can build a restoration of the new ecosystems which keep it as sustainable as possible.

And then, I said already, we need a better life and improve the livelihood of farmers. Because I am the son of a farmer from China. We need to improve their livelihood first. And then we have to build up the green food producer for that and we offer the infrastructure: broadband, roads, and other services, technology services, marketing services, financial services to build their own life. And if their livelihood is improved, the citizens, more and more people will stay in the city. They can have sustainable, green food. And also ecologically friendly production.

So, and then we can also prevent the zoonotic disease. Because if we don’t look at the situation in the field, in the farmer’s field, villages, mountains and rivers, how can we build the One Health and prevent zoonotic disease more destructive to this environment, to human beings and life?

And that’s why we have to address, in Europe and cities, less food waste. Food waste is not a matter of food. It’s a matter of the environment, it’s a matter of life. And sustainability of the Earth also, not only ourselves, individually.

Yesterday I had a talk with the president of the European Parliament. We wanted to work more on food waste because so many great leaders are paying attention. Because if we save food, we save the environment. And I expect more from Austria and Europe also.

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Question two: Do you expect the European way of the common agriculture policy as a way for improving environmental and climate issues, and might it be a role model for the rest of the world? And do you expect the Green Deal measurements, especially the Farm to Fork strategy and the biodiversity strategy of the European Union as a part of Europe’s policy to improve or to decrease the global food systems?

I’m not the right person to answer that question or comment on that publicly. You know, you have to ask my colleague at the Agricultural Commission in Europe or President of Europe, or ministers of the European Union in Agriculture and Environment.

But I wanted so say, from the point of view of the FAO DG, what I expect from Europe.

You know, during the past 30 years, I observed the European agriculture and rural development. I found out, if you want to keep the national or regional agricultural rural development sustainable, you need four elements.

First, proper policy. Policies not only for the environment, because agriculture’s core function is to produce more quantity food, more diverse food, because if we look at other food systems in Asia, we have so many different kinds of food. So, I said so many times, we have to transform biodiversity to food diversity. In Europe you have a big potential based on innovation.

So that’s policy for the production, for trade, for investment. All this adequate enabling policy is very important.

Second, you need more investment for rural areas. A lot of people visit your country or other European developed countries. If they just come one time and they probably could not easily find a big difference between the town and village. Since I come to Europe so many times and stay in Europe so long, I find there is a big difference between the city and the village in Europe. You need to improve the infrastructure of broadband, accessibility of their roads, and cold chain systems also in villages. So, you need a lot more investment for rural areas, for farmers. Not only give them a subsidy. So, investment is number two.

More importantly, you have to create a long-term, mid-term, short-term of innovation and technology. You need new variety based on biotechnology, based on traditional breeding, and also you have to use the other innovative products, bio-products: bio-fertilizer, non-polluting chemicals and so on. And bio-vaccine, not only for human beings, for animals. Innovation in technology is very important. That’s Third.

And fourth: new business model. You have to open market, keep the free trade, keep the sustainable supply of food from the other regions, and build up your own competitive one or two commodities which also you can export to other countries. Other European countries, other Asian countries, or America and so on, you name it. Or the Middle East.

So, I think these are four elements. You can use these four indicators to evaluate the question you asked at the national level or regional level or even at  local community level. Because some countries here also are big. Austria, you can have your own standard, what your strengthened competitive advantages, or what your disadvantages should be complement to others. So that’s I think we want to keep the free and functional international trade and in some time it will build up the individual competitiveness for each member or each region. That’s my thought. Thank you.

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Concluding remarks

Thank you, and also one day I want to have a personal interaction, dialogue with your different key players from the Ministers, officials, to the farmers’ organizations, and the traders, researchers and civil society. And then we can help you, assist you a little bit, to build up a new model for other countries on this planet.

Thank you.