21 July 2004, Rome -- The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Istituto Nazionale di Economia Agraria (INEA) have signed today an agreement to strengthen training activities related to food security in the Caribbean.

The $50 000 project, "Promoting CARICOM/CARIFORUM Food Security," will be funded with an extra-budgetary Italian contribution to the Trust Fund for Food Security and Food Safety.

Activities undertaken by INEA will focus on capacity building in trade policy analysis, planning and negotiation. Training workshops will be conducted in Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM*) member countries.

INEA, which operates under the umbrella of the Ministry of Agricultural and Forestry Policies of Italy, is a public and non-profit research institution actively involved, since 1928, in the field of agricultural economics and policy both at national and international level.

The Italian research institution will operate in close coordination with the Commodity and Trade Division of FAO.

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Contact:
Sabina Zaccaro
Information Officer, FAO
(+39) 06 570 53650
sabina.zaccaro@fao.org


*CARICOM/CARIFORUM (Caribbean Community and Common Market/Caribbean Forum) Member States are: Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, Montserrat, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago.