Seventh Meeting of the South West Pacific Ministers for Agriculture

Majuro, Marshall Islands, 29 May 2007

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is a privilege and an honour to address you here in Majuro on the occasion of the Seventh Meeting of South West Pacific Ministers for Agriculture.

I should like to thank in particular His Excellency Mr Kessai H. Note for his presence here today which testifies to the importance that your Government, Mr President, attaches to the fight against poverty. I should also like to express my gratitude to the Government of the Republic of the Marshall Islands for its hospitality.

This important meeting will help identify regional priorities in agriculture, rural development and food security. It will also consolidate the excellent cooperation that exists between the countries of the South West Pacific and FAO.

At the Earth Summit in 1992, the countries of your region were identified as a "special group" on account of the characteristics of their agriculture, fisheries and forests and their particular climatic conditions.

These last months have impacted heavily on economic activity in your countries, with 12 tropical cyclones and depressions affecting the South Pacific and 15 typhoons developing in the North West Pacific. These meteorological events have provoked untold damage. And this year, while the Marshall Islands were ravaged by drought, Fiji was devastated by torrential rains and floods.

In addition, volcanic eruptions threatened thousands of villagers in Vanuatu. In the Solomon Islands, a magnitude-8 earthquake created a tsunami that killed 50 people and caused a further 7 000 people to lose their homes and livelihoods.

On the world level, globalization is spawning economic and social change that needs to be addressed.

For a long time your region was self-reliant in food. In recent decades it has been heavily dependent on food imports. Fortunately, agricultural and fishery exports earn considerable foreign revenue and are precious sources of employment and income for the rural populations.

However, producers have to meet increasingly stringent requirements from the sanitary and phytosanitary measures that govern world trade.

In 2002, at the World Food Summit: five years later in Rome, the representatives of the Pacific Island Countries asked the International Community for help in tackling threats from illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing. This issue was also raised at the Annual Summit of the Pacific Islands Forum, which was last held in Fiji in 2006. But much still remains to be done if appropriate solutions to this problem are to be found.

New animal and plant diseases are emerging while trade takes other familiar diseases to the different parts of the world. Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), foot-and-mouth disease and bird flu are serious risks against which the region needs to be prepared.

The scientific community recognizes that global warming will probably have major consequences on the living conditions of tens of thousands of inhabitants of Pacific atolls because of the risk of rising sea levels.

Such an occurrence will impact on the forest resources of the region and on the conditions of sustainable forest management in the Pacific. The long distances to the markets of wood-based products should encourage more local processing of such products. Improved forest management would also have a direct impact on the conservation of water resources.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Since 1994 FAO has engaged in major reforms aimed primarily at streamlining delivery of its technical and operational expertise to its Member Nations.

The establishment in 1996 of the Sub-Regional Office for the Pacific Islands, in Samoa, was an important step in strengthening our collaboration and making multidisciplinary technical teams available the countries of the region.

Under the Mauritius Strategy of 2005 and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), FAO is assisting Small Island Developing States (SIDS) in their efforts to integrate food security policies and programmes.

The Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries, the Codex Alimentarius, the International Plant Protection Convention, the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources and other international agreements negotiated under the aegis of FAO provide an appropriate legal framework for the sustainable and more equitable management of natural resources.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Your meeting will review the current state of food and agriculture in the Pacific region and the implementation of the decisions reached at the Sixth Meeting in the Cook Islands in 2005. FAO has pledged its full support to those initiatives.

Thus, with regard to FAO actions in support of the diverse food security needs and challenges in the Pacific Island Countries, the Pacific Regional Programme for Food Security for the 14 Pacific countries has received USD 4.5 million in funding from Italy and USD 2.8 million from FAO's Technical Cooperation Programme (TCP). In addition, China and the Philippines are providing 34 and 26 field technicians respectively, under South-South Cooperation, to work directly with their host country counterparts in rural communities.

The programme focuses on three key areas:

- support to national food security programmes;

- development of intraregional and international trade through implementation of food safety regulations;

- adoption and implementation of structural reforms and measures to harmonize agricultural policy.

Along the same lines, international partnerships have been fostered to help countries meet the challenges of globalization through effective collective action. Conducted in collaboration with the Pacific Islands Forum and the Secretariat of the Pacific Community, the Regional Programme for Food Security promotes international partnerships.

The relevance of this programme led you, at your meeting of 2005 in the Cook Islands, to ask for FAO assistance in preparing an expansion phase. The corresponding document is now before you for approval.

You are also concerned about agricultural trade, understandably seeing that 40 percent of the agricultural exports of eight countries of the region come from a single commodity. With the resumption of the Doha Development Round of the World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations, there is unquestionably a need to put specific instruments in place for the Small Island States of the region.

In this connection, in recent years the FAO Sub-Regional Office for the Pacific has organized round tables on the WTO Agreement provisions that relate to agriculture and fisheries. As a result, over 200 officials from 13 countries are able to participate effectively in trade negotiations. Also, following the ninth round table on trade in Wellington in July 2006, FAO launched four studies, which are currently in progress, on the identification of special products and other important topics relating to trade and development.

As part of its action to help the most vulnerable groups, FAO has approved TCP projects for young entrepreneurs in agriculture and rural development, providing them with high-level agricultural training with the University of South Pacific's School of Agriculture and Food Technology. FAO is also providing support to the activities of women whose role as the movers of agricultural and rural development is now widely recognized.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The challenge of eliminating poverty and hunger remains here and elsewhere in the world. Three-quarters of the poor and the hungry are rural people who depend on agriculture, fisheries and forests.

At this time of sweeping reform of FAO and of the United Nations system as a whole so that they can better perform their role in furthering development and peace in the world, I am convinced that with the support of the governments and peoples of the Pacific we can rise to the challenge of overcoming hunger and poverty.

Thank you for your kind attention.

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