First FAO Roundtable Forum on Sustainable Plant Production

The Plant Production and Protection Division (NSP) of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is organizing the first FAO Roundtable Forum on Sustainable Plant Production, on 13 June 2023, in virtual format.

The Forum will be officially opened by the FAO Director-General and will build on the FAO Global Conference on Sustainable Plant Production (GPC), which was held from 2 to 4 November 2022. This Forum will, in particular, provide a platform for the GPC Steering Committee and Technical Advisory Panel, invited experts and staff to articulate and prioritise actionable interventions to produce more food with less – reducing environmental footprint while contributing to strong, local and diversified agrifood systems that are more resilient to shocks and disruptions.

Sustainable plant production systems can enable more food to be produced to meet increasing demand, without exerting further pressure on the environment (i.e. from the application of more fertilizers and pesticides and/or converting more land to agriculture). These systems should promote greater resilience to climate change and protect biodiversity through integrated approaches. Sustainable plant production systems must be farmer-centric, placing the farmer’s needs, knowledge and constraints at the core of the solution and acknowledging the need for a multiplicity of options to be available to respond to complex and heterogeneous production environments.

The GPC serves as a neutral forum for FAO Members, farmers, scientists, development agencies, policy makers, extension agents, civil society, opinion leaders and the private sector to engage in dialogues on innovation that creates efficient plant production systems with resilience to biotic and abiotic stresses, climate change, natural hazards, and geopolitical disruptions.

The main objectives of the Forum are to:

1. Continue creating awareness on the importance of sustainable plant production for the attainment of food security and nutrition and hence the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals;
   
2. Launch the Proceedings of the Global Plant Production Conference, which contains the conference recommendations on Strategic Actions for Sustainable Plant Production; and
   
3. Discuss the proposed core activities for implementing the conference recommendations in 2023-25.

For more information, please contact: [email protected]