Senior staff at FAO yesterday briefed a delegation of five U.S. Senators on FAO’s work on resilience, nutrition, fisheries, climate change, animal health, data, trade and other areas.

The Senators were in Rome as part of a trip that has included visits to learn about the agricultural situation in Senegal, Ethiopia and Tanzania. Earlier in the day, the Senators met with senior colleagues from the World Food Programme (WFP). 

Opening the meeting, David J. Lane, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture, emphasized the depth, breadth and complexity of FAO’s work and its critical contribution to global food security.  Noting the many changes that have taken place at FAO, he highlighted the strength of the relationship that exists between the US Government and the organization.

Dan Gustafson, FAO’s Deputy Director-General (Operations) began with an overview of the Organization’s work, structure and funding and described its contribution at global, regional and country levels. 

Information a public good

Gustafson drew attention to FAO’s role in providing key global public goods across all areas of its mandate, through the provision of statistics, technical standards and guidelines, and global knowledge products and publications.  “Transparent high quality data helps everybody,” he said, citing the example of the Agricultural Markets Information System (AMIS), a G20 initiative with a FAO-hosted Secretariat, which enhances food market transparency and encourages coordinated policy action in response to market uncertainty.

Increasing resilience

Dominique Burgeon, who leads FAO’s emergency and rehabilitation division , provided an insight into FAO’s work to increase rural people’s resilience to the growing threats and crises linked to war, disease and natural disasters.  Highlighting the importance of FAO’s collaboration with WFP and its many partners in the Global Food Security cluster and beyond, he also recognised the outstanding contribution of the US Forest Service to the development of FAO’s Level 3 protocols. These were launched last year and have transformed FAO’s ability to respond to recent large-scale emergencies in the Philippines, Central African Republic, South Sudan and elsewhere. 

Burgeon also recalled the rich history of collaboration between FAO and US institutions in the fight against animal pests and diseases such as Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza and the successful global campaign to eradicate rinderpest.

Nutrition

Anna Lartey, who heads FAO’s work on nutrition, described FAO’s food safety work and explained how FAO and the World Health Organization’s (WHO) work together to support Codex Alimentarius .  Lartey recalled that “raising levels of nutrition lies at the very heart of FAO’s Constitution”, highlighting the critical links between agriculture and nutrition and the work being done to build food systems for better nutrition. 

Lartey also briefed the Senators on the Second International Conference on Nutrition (ICN2) taking place at FAO in November this year.  Jointly organized by FAO and WHO, “ICN2 will help translate today’s unprecedented commitments into tomorrow’s concerted actions and impacts.”

Animal health

During the meeting the visiting U.S. Senators were reminded that 70 percent of today’s viral diseases affecting humans originate in animals. They were also provided with information about FAO’s work with governments, communities and other development partners to deepen knowledge of the animal-human interface and to reduce disease risks to humans and animals alike.

Climate change

Discussions touched upon the benefits of integrating climate change considerations into the design of agricultural policies. FAO Environmental Economist Leslie Lipper underscored the importance of climate-smart agriculture, as climate change is already affecting all aspects of food security.

Fisheries

Lahsen Ababouch, who heads FAO’s work on fisheries and aquaculture economics and policy, noted that fisheries is the world’s fastest growing food-production system and stressed the importance of its sustainable management,  in particular the need to tackle Illegal and unreported fishing.

Discussions also touched upon the long-standing but ever-greater tradition of cooperation between FAO and U.S. research institutions in almost all areas of FAO’s work.

FAO’s Deputy Director-General and Coordinator for Natural Resources, Maria Helena Semedo, affirmed the heightened importance FAO gives to mainstreaming gender perspectives and women’s empowerment and the advances being made to nourish and expand FAO’s partnerships with the private sector, academic institutions and civil society organizations in pursuit of its strategic goals.

Closing the meeting, Senator Debbie Stabenow, Chair of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry , remarked “how impressed we all are by the work being done by FAO in all these areas” and the importance of working together to beat hunger and malnutrition.  “Today’s meeting” she said, “is only a beginning” and she looked forward to continuing dialogue and knowledge exchange in the future. 

In addition to Senator Debbie Stabenow, other Senators at the briefing were Senators Heidi Heitkamp and Amy Klobuchar -  both members of the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry - Senator Maria Cantwell, Chair of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship and Senator Mazie Hirono, who amongst other duties,  serves on the Senate Committee on Armed Services.