SLOVAK REPUBLIC International Agriculture and Food Agrokomplex Exhibition 2024 Opening Ceremony Statement

Excellencies,

Ladies and Gentlemen, 

I wish to thank His Excellency the Minister for Agriculture and Rural Development of the Slovak Republic for inviting me to Nitra for this important AGROKOMPLEX since 1974.

More than 730 million people worldwide faced hunger in 2023, with over 2.3 billion moderately or severely food insecure. Food security includes food availability, food accessibility and food affordability.

Starting from staple foods to nutritious foods up to healthy foods, we need to balance social economic and environmental issues.

Yesterday, I had great meetings with the Ministers of the Environment, and Agriculture, as well as the Rector of the Slovak University of Agriculture, and director of Research Institutes. 

Together, we need all disciplines integrated together to achieve our goals – a complicated combination like AGRO “KOMPLEX’’. 

Since I first visited Slovakia in 2007, there has been great progress, and it is fantastic to see your Ministers of the Environment and Agriculture working together.

You have great potential here with fertile land, abundant water, and large coverage with forestry, as well as a relatively small population. But globally, we have huge challenges to feed a growing population. 

Without urgent transformative change, it is projected that 580 million people will be hungry by the 2030 on the Sustainable Development Agenda.

We are off-track to achieve the global nutrition targets, and rising rates of obesity present major issues for the health and well-being of all age groups. 

We are also facing extraordinary challenges linked to our degrading soils, water shortage and biodiversity loss, compounded by the climate crisis and socio-economic impacts. Farmers are facing changing rainfall patterns, intensifying droughts, and extreme weather conditions and events.

With only five and half years to go, it is critical that we work together if we want to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The solutions for these complex global challenges lie in the rich agricultural traditions and diversity, combined with innovation and adaptation capacities and purchasing power driven by new generation of consumers. 

I am pleased to see such a large community of farmers, food producers and representatives of the whole agrifood industry here.

Your success in research, innovation, technology, crop diversification, organic farming, private sector engagement, innovative business model and modernization of agri-foodsystems can inspire developing countries.

This exhibition also recognizes the critical role of farmers, as the providers of nutritious foods, and the guardians of our natural resources and rural communities. 

There is an additional demand to supply a new generation of consumers with different demands.

That is why I have come to learn from your experiences. You have great vocational education and experience that can be extended beyond Slovakia.

You have to find your own balance between production, environment and consumer demands. We need science and innovation to achieve this balance. 

I agree with the Minister of Agriculture that a social dialogue is needed to agree on the approach tailored for each geographical region of Slovakia.

With further infrastructure modernization, you will become a logistics capital of Eastern Europe, especially for agrifood products, as you will speedily be able to export your products all over the world, harnessing the benefit of e-commerce and further benefiting from a rise in agrotourism from all over the world, not just Europe.

Let us join hands and learn lessons from your achievements – the Slovak Republic has a lot to offer developing countries to support their agricultural development and agrifood systems transformation, through capacity building and knowledge sharing, as well as financial support. 

As I always say, we must think together, learn together, work together, so we can effectively collaborate, together. 

Dear Friends,

Thank you for this opportunity to learn more about your country and your rich agricultural heritage. Together, we are planting the seeds of our strengthened partnership.

By working together in an efficient, effective and coherent manner we can develop new, modernized ways of farming and establish new value chain of agri products, new approaches that will lead to the transformation of global agrifood systems to be more efficient, more resilient, more inclusive  and more sustainable, for the Four Betters: better production, better nutrition, a better environment, and a better life – leaving no one behind.

Thank you.