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This statement is being delivered on behalf of the 134 developing country members of the G77 & China, vigorously seeking to enhance the state of food and agriculture at the global, regional and national levels, in collaboration with FAO and other UN Rome-based agencies, and with concerned stakeholders, to ensure that no one will be left behind.

We appreciate the Secretariat’s presentation of the reference document on this agen-da item, based on the State of Food and Agriculture (SOFA) 2016 report, with the theme of “Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security.”

Climate change is described as one of the greatest challenges of our time in the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development. SDG 13 explicitly calls for urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts. As underscored in the SOFA report, unless action is taken now to make agriculture more sustainable, productive and resilient, the impacts of climate change will seriously compromise food production in regions that are already highly food insecure. Even though climate change affects world food security and agriculture production as whole, its impacts are more strongly felt among poor and vulnerable populations of developing countries.

Developing countries are particularly at risk of declining yields as a result of climate change, according to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Indeed, lower productivity in agriculture resulting from climate change will have serious negative implications for livelihoods and food security, especially for smallholders and family farmers in rural areas.

In the implementation of the Paris Agreement, it is crucial to consider the particularities of agriculture and food systems for their contributions to safeguarding food security and ending hunger. The Agreement is a collective achievement of all Parties. It aims to bolster the implementation of the UNFCCC, in particular considering the common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, in light of different national circumstances. Equity, human rights and the right to development are all interconnected and shall underpin our shared goals of combating climate change and eradicate hunger and poverty.

Developing countries are already making a significant contribution to the fight against climate change, even if constrained by limited capacity building, financial and techno-logical support. One of the major challenges (if not the main one) faced by our group of countries in implementing the Paris Agreement is essentially about means of imple-mentation.

To effectively implement our commitments under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement, developing countries will require support from developed countries, including through the fulfilment of their commitments and obligations under the Convention related to the provision of financial resources, based on their responsibilities for historical emissions. We reiterate that economic and social development, poverty eradication, and adaptation to climate change and its co-benefits are the overriding priorities of developing countries. in relation with the issue of climate change, agriculture and food security.

The SOFA report rightly pointed out that adequate climate financing and agricultural investments are essential to enable the transition to sustainable agricultural practices. A huge shortfall in financing and investments still needs to be filled, particularly to enable smallholder producers in developing countries to better access credit and other financing instruments for investing in new technologies and practices. Efforts should continue to strengthen developing countries’ capacities to develop actions towards climate change, achieve food security and improve nutrition, including through international cooperation, such as South-South and Triangular cooperation and North-South cooperation. Adequate, predictable and sustained finance, technology and capacity building must be ensured to assist developing country Parties to enhance our climate actions.

Special attention must be given to women, who make up around 43 percent of the ag-ricultural labour force in developing countries, with fewer endowments and entitle-ments than men, and with even more limited access to information and services, and gender-determined household responsibilities.

While we recognize that one area with a large potential for policy realignment is the redesign of agricultural support measures to facilitate, rather than impede, the transi-tion to sustainable agriculture, we caution that such redesign should not lead to and be used as a justification to extend more trade-distortive support measures. We concur that trade restrictions which limit the response of global agricultural production to changes in demand and supply under climate change should be in line with the Agenda 2030, in particular SDG 17 which calls to promote a universal, rules-based, open, non-discriminatory and equitable multilateral trading system under the World Trade Organization, including through the conclusion of negotiations under its Doha Development Agenda. We consider that trade distortions that lead to overexploitation of natural resources, including those contributing to climate change, should be elimi-nated. The WTO 11th Ministerial Conference offers an opportunity in this regard.

Mr. Chairman,

The G77 and China appreciates the overall conclusions of the present State of Food and Agriculture report. As for the suggested actions by the Conference, it should be noted that the Paris Agreement recognized the fundamental priority of safeguarding food security and ending hunger, as well as the particular vulnerabilities of food pro-duction systems to the adverse impacts of climate change. However, there is no partic-ular commitment of this kind in the Agreement. Therefore, the current item c) of the Suggested Actions is a bit misleading in this regard. Therefore, we propose that the Conference “stresses the importance of implementing the Paris Agreement, taking into account the imperative need to promote food security and nutrition, sustainable agriculture and rural devel-opment, through broad transformative national policies for the production systems and related sectors.”

Mr. Chairman,

The fight against climate change is an irreversible and unavoidable process that is ful-ly compatible with economic growth and sustainable development strategies as de-fined at national level, according to national capacities and circumstances. To collec-tively respond at this common challenge, new opportunities are rising to promote inno-vation and sustainable development, reconciling economic prosperity, social inclusion and environmental conservation.

The Group of 77 and China remains committed to fight climate change, recognizing that its Member States have been the most affected by its adverse impacts which erode our development gains and undermine and delay the achievement of the goals con-tained in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Finally, in light of these remarks and acknowledging FAO´s valuable contribution in supporting developing countries to implement their Nationally Determined Contribu-tions and several Sustainable Development Goals, the G77 & China endorses the rec-ommended actions by the Conference in the reference document.

Thank you.