Opening Statement by Mr H.W. Hjort, Deputy Director-General 14th session of COAG, 7-11 April 1997 Mr. Chairman, Distinguished Delegates and Observers, Ladies and Gentlemen, It is with great pleasure that I welcome the Members and Observers, on behalf of the Director-General, to this Fourteenth Session of the Committee on Agriculture. We have made a special effort to encourage participation by a wider selection of non-governmental interests, on their own or as members of national delegations, in recognition of the fact that the whole of civil society must increasingly work in concert to enable Members to reach their agricultural development and food security goals. I look forward to a substantive contribution from these interests to our debate on the important issues before the Committee. Mr Chairman (Mr Christophe Kiemtore, Burkina Faso), I extend to you my congratulations on your election to this key position, as well as to the two vice-chairpersons (Ms Maria Kadlecikova, Slovakia, First Vice-Chairperson; Mr Romarico Arroyo, Mexico, Second Vice-Chairperson). I am confident that you and your colleagues will guide us through the forthcoming debates and enable the Committee to expedite the completion of many tasks during this week. As in previous years, this 14th session of COAG is one of a series of sessions of technical committees held in the spring of Conference years in Rome. It has been preceded by very successful sessions of COFI and COFO and will be followed shortly by the Committee on World Food Security. This sequence and timing is particularly important this year because it marks the first occasion to consider the implications for the Organization of the outcome of the World Food Summit and particularly its Plan of Action. The CFS itself will be discussing in detail the modalities of the Summit follow-up, so COAG need not address this particular issue. But it does need to reflect on how the Major Programmes under the purview of the Committee should be reshaped to enhance progress by Members towards the goals and objectives of the Summit, which they collectively embraced last November. COAG's views on Major Programmes 2.1, 2.2 and 2.5, which cover 77 percent of the Organization's technical and economic programmes - both in the medium term and the short term - will provide valuable guidance to the Director-General and to the Programme and Finance Committees, the Council and the Conference in their deliberations on the programme of work and budget for 1998-99 and beyond. Under Item 3, Review of FAO's Programme of Work in the Food and Agriculture Sector, you will cover three separate but related components: the review of selected achievements under the Regular Programme, then a look forward to the medium term, where the outcome of the World Food Summit in shaping the Organization's work programme is particularly relevant, and then, in the supplementary document, a preview of the Summary Programme of Work and Budget as it relates to the work of concern to COAG. I shall not go further into the details here as they will be introduced shortly, but I wish to stress the importance of your views on these Programmes, keeping in mind the unfortunate fact that they will be affected disproportionatly if financial resources are further reduced. Mr Chairman, in order to be as brief as possible, I shall turn quickly to reviewing the structure and content of the other items on the agenda before you. In accordance with the Organization's rules on COAG and in accordance with the wishes of its previous sessions, the agenda items are grouped under four major headings: the work programme, livestock, crops and sustainable development. You will recall that the 13th session of COAG agreed to move, on a trial basis, the standing item on nutrition, to the CFS, in order to gather discussions on food security in the wide sense within the purview of the CFS, as well as to lighten what has become an already heavy COAG agenda. Item 4, Management of Livestock Resources, launches COAG into its main technical discussions. In its past sessions, COAG has stressed the actual and potential contribution of the livestock sector to overall economic and social development. At the same time, livestock production systems are themselves threatened by changing economic, social and environmental forces. The document describes FAO's approach, through the programme of its Animal Production and Health Division, in tackling this major issue of agricultural development, and how this approach may assist member countries in shaping their own policies towards the sector. The next item (Rural Development with Particular Emphasis on Land Tenure and Off-Farm Income) moves us into the area of sustainable development and the environment. Here the focus is on the pressures imposed on institutions and societies through change. In this case, there are economic and political as well as demographic changes to be assessed as well as their impacts on rural development through the evolution of land tenure and the generation of off-farm income. The links between land tenure and off-farm employment and other sources of income on one side and between these and land tenure changes and food security on the other, are examined and their implications for FAO's work and country-level development policy discussed. Concerning crops, there are two extremely important items on the agenda: a Review of Standards for Plant Quarantine Harmonization, and Revision of the International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC). It is now becoming the tradition to submit to COAG draft standards for its review, seeking its recommendation for adoption by Conference through Council. With regard to the IPPC Revision, Item 7, I welcome your decision to bring this forward in the agenda to provide time for negotiations to proceed, and wish to underline the importance of seizing this opportunity to negotiate a revised text which may be brought before COAG towards the end of the week. Then, if all goes well, the revised text could be moved forward through Council and Conference before the end of this year. Under Other Matters, you have before you the Recommendations of the Ad Hoc Group of Experts on Animal Genetic Resources. These recommendations mark a further step in the broadening of the operational mandate of the Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture through the establishment of an Animal Genetic Resources Intergovernmental Technical Working Group of the Commission. COAG's consideration of this issue was requested by the 28th session of Conference in November 1995 and also by the 3rd Extraordinary Session of the Commission. Should your review of these recommendations be favourable, this will have considerable implications for the work of the Commission in the coming two years. I should also remind you that in complying with Rule IV of COAG's Rules of Procedure, the views of the Committee are sought on possible agenda items for the next, 15th session. In the coming days, I invite you to reflect on possible appropriate and focused topics that may be put forward for consideration in 1999, keeping in mind the pressures to improve the quality of COAG's outputs and to reduce the costs of the main committees and their subsidiary bodies. Finally, Mr Chairman, I draw the attention of COAG to the two documents prepared by the Secretariat which are not for discussion but for information of the Committee. The first is the Report on Follow-up to Agenda 21 in preparation for the Special Session of the UN General Assembly in June in marking the five-year anniversary of the UN Conference on the Environment and Development. The second substantive document provides Information on the FAO Guide to Efficient Plant Nutrient Management. Mr Chairman, I wish COAG success in its deliberations and underline the importance of this and other technical gatherings in furthering, through international cooperation and dialogue, the objectives of FAO and indeed of the community at large, in the area of food and agriculture. It is through such technical discussions as these that the political objectives of the World Food Summit can be attained. 8 April 1997