FAO serves as a neutral forum for analysis and discussion of major issues related to food and agriculture. The FAO Conference in 1993 reviewed a broad range of issues, while other meetings focused on the priority of food as a basic human right and the need to improve management of fishing and marine resources.
The FAO Conference is the summit that brings the Organization's Member Nations together every two years to review progress, to approve the Organization's programme of work and budget for the next biennium and, periodically, as in 1993, to elect a new head of the agency. After 18 years as Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization, Mr Edouard Saouma had made it known that he would not seek another term of office. Following six ballots, Dr Jacques Diouf of Senegal was chosen to succeed him. At the time of his election, Dr Diouf was Senegal's Ambassador to the United Nations. He brings to the post a wealth of both national and international experience.
The 27th FAO Conference was convened in a context of declining agricultural production in the industrial countries and only slight increases in the developing nations. Discussions focused on the urgent need for increased food security in the developing world, particularly in Africa. During preliminary meetings, Dr Diouf cited the major challenges he saw facing the Organization: attainment, in each country, of adequate food production accompanied by just and equitable access to food; balanced conditions of trade; and protection of the environment. He stressed the need to call public attention to the "slow, silent and insidious devastations of poverty in the marginal populations around our 'planetary village'".
The Conference elected Mr José Ramón López Portillo of Mexico for a two-year term as Independent Chairman of FAO's 49-nation governing Council. It also voted to accept the applications of ten countries for membership, bringing FAO's constituency to a record 169 nations besides Puerto Rico as an associate member and the EEC as a member organization. On the opening day of the 15- day meeting, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Eritrea, the Kyrgyzstan, Slovakia, Slovenia and The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia were voted in. Three days later, South Africa was re-admitted: a founder member, it had withdrawn in 1964.
To assist in the planning needed to achieve crucial increases in agricultural production, food security and sustainability, the Conference launched the document Agriculture: Towards 2010 . This global study analyses expectations for food and agriculture to the year 2010, focusing on two central themes: prospects for enhanced food security and nutrition; and improved sustainability of agricultural and rural development. In broad terms, it indicates that food production will outpace population growth, though nutritional gains will be limited in many developing nations. The report is intended to provide an early warning for people and governments, allowing them to take action to counter negative trends and confront emerging problems effectively.
The Conference reviewed and approved the Organization's Programme of Work and Budget for 1994-1995. The programme for the next biennium was designed to fulfil the Organization's most pressing tasks without an increase in expenditure over that of the previous two years. As at the election of the previous Director-General, the Conference granted the incoming Director-General the flexibility to work out - in consultation with Member Nations - alternative proposals at the approved spending levels.
Taking note of dwindling marine resources, and as part of the International Code of Conduct for Responsible Fishing, the Conference endorsed the Agreement to Promote Compliance with International Conservation and Management Measures by Fishing Vessels on the High Seas. This agreement will support control of vessels that avoid complying with regulatory measures by taking advantage of loopholes in legislation and quota regulations.
As a special point on its agenda, the Conference reviewed women's role in development. While acknowledging that the changes in attitude needed to ensure women's full and equitable participation are often slow and difficult to produce, the Conference commended FAO for its implementation of an action plan to integrate women in the development process. During the Conference, FAO's Boerma Award was presented to Ms Franceline Oubda from Burkina Faso for her television series on women's participation in her country's development.
In conclusion, the Conference called for immediate national and international action to attack the causes of persistent food insecurity, notably inadequate agricultural and rural development. Members agreed that "in many developing countries with high dependence on agriculture, the priority on improving agricultural performance should be the quintessence of strategies for poverty-reducing overall development, improved nutritional status and food security".
On the Orkney islands just off northern Scotland, Ronaldsay sheep survive on seaweed. The Hailum pig is known in Thailand for its prolificacy, resistance to disease and ability to survive on poor-quality feed. Crioulo Lageano cattle in Brazil are praised for their mothering attributes and easy calving. Milk from a cattle breed known as Reggina, in northern Italy, produces very high-quality Parmesan cheese. All of these diverse breeds, and many more, have one thing in common: they are at risk of extinction.
For 10 000 years, our ancestors developed and adapted livestock to meet their needs, producing the 4 000 breeds in existence today. Between 30 and 40 percent of these animal groups are now threatened by highly selective, intensive industrial stockbreeding and indiscriminate cross-breeding. These short-sighted activities encourage the rapid replacement of indigenous livestock with a few high-input, high-producing varieties.
Many of the threatened breeds are well adapted to the difficult conditions often found in developing countries, providing essential food, agricultural products, draught, transport and fuel and producing cash reserves, apart from their medicinal and cultural virtues. In addition, the wealth of diversity represented by this livestock comprises a genetic storehouse for traits that can be exploited to respond to unforeseen future needs.
In 1993, FAO and UNEP published the World Watch List for Domestic Animal Diversity , the first attempt to document the state of global livestock genetic diversity. Monitoring, description and characterization of existing breeds constitute a vital part of conservation, allowing us to understand each species' status, as well as its unique qualities and potential. The World Watch List is based on the FAO Global Databank, part of the Global Information System for Domestic Animal Diversity. Developed as an early warning system to help prevent erosion of genetic diversity in animal species, the first edition of the List covers asses, buffaloes, cattle, goats, horses, pigs and sheep. Future editions will add other species and wild relatives as the Databank is updated and expanded; it currently comprises 3 000 entries and is expected to reach 4 000.
The World Watch List for Domestic Animal Diversity will contribute to better communication and collaboration in conservation, encouraging more efficient, effective and sustainable use of available domestic animal resources.
The VIIth World Conference on Animal Production, held in Canada in June 1993, was host to an FAO-sponsored symposium on Sustainable Animal Feeding Systems. Attended by nearly 300 participants from countries throughout the world, the symposium presented an excellent opportunity to disseminate FAO research on sustainable feed resources - among them treated straw and sugar-cane residues - with a focus on tropical production systems.
The first East-West Fisheries Conference - held in St Petersburg - was attended by 300 participants, 120 of them from East and Central Europe and Russia. Among the topics discussed at this landmark event were possibilities of cooperation such as development of trade links and joint ventures, utilization of pelagic species, quality assurance and privatization of the fisheries sectors.
At an international symposium held in Beijing in May 1993, a policy paper was presented on the experience gained in applying SARD (Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development) principles in China. SARD is the umbrella under which FAO houses numerous cooperative international programmes for policy review and planning to follow through on a long-term strategy for achieving sustainability in the agricultural and related natural resources sectors. The China symposium provided participants with unique insight into the problems and opportunities involved in the process.
To support optimum utilization and sustainable development of tuna-based fisheries in the Indian Ocean, the Agreement for the Establishment of the Indian Ocean Tuna Fish Commission was adopted by the FAO Council in November 1993. The Commission will foster international cooperation among FAO members located in the region as well as those whose vessels fish in the area for tuna.
Without the right to adequate food and nutrition, the enjoyment of other human rights and freedoms remains unattainable for hundreds of millions of people. This was the message FAO brought to the World Conference on Human Rights held in Vienna from 14 to 25 June 1993.
Before representatives from 150 states, most of the UN agencies, hundreds of NGOs and over 1 000 media, FAO's delegation denounced the fact that the Organization "year after year, must count the hundreds of millions of undernourished people and the millions of deaths from shortages and famine, while at the same time keeping track of world food production, only to conclude that we would in fact have enough to feed everyone in the future, if we only had the will to do so".
Those most at risk from undernutrition and hunger include the poor, the elderly, refugees and displaced persons, drought-prone populations - and children. Nearly 13 million children under five die every year as a direct or indirect result of hunger and malnutrition.
At the World Conference, FAO distributed a fact sheet on the right to food, outlining effective strategies for making it a reality. The strategies concentrate on the equitable distribution of available food resources and on broadly based actions to ensure that people are able to obtain the food they need. In particular, FAO advocates equitable, participatory rural development as the key to the eradication of poverty, the first and foremost cause of undernutrition.
To help ensure the attainment of freedom from hunger by all people, FAO has developed numerous activities to raise the levels of food security in the developing world. These include early warning systems, labour-intensive public works programmes, provision of access to credit, nutrition education and the encouragement of small-scale, community-based agricultural
Because of overfishing, global landings of all living marine resources have declined to about 82.5 million tonnes from the peak of 86.5 million tonnes reached in 1989. Many species, especially long-lived fish with high commercial value such as cod, haddock, snappers and groupers, have actually registered downward trends. A progressively higher proportion of the global catch now comes from short-lived species, among them anchovies, sardines and squids.
Only relatively recently has it been officially recognized that the world's oceans must be regulated and protected as natural resources, though FAO has for many years promoted activities to achieve this goal. Among its current endeavours to conserve and enhance marine resources, the Organization is formulating an international Code of Conduct for Responsible Fishing. The Code is intended to address unregulated fishing and associated activities, countering negative effects on marine ecosystems.
In November 1993, the 27th Session of the FAO Conference took a first step towards the development of the Code of Conduct, adopting the "Agreement to Promote Compliance with International Measures by Fishing Vessels on the High Seas". The agreement demonstrates international consensus regarding the need to establish regulatory frameworks for fishing fleets that operate in areas beyond national jurisdiction.
Also in 1993, FAO prepared reports documenting the status of high-seas marine resources and of migrating and straddling stocks crossing the boundaries between Exclusive Economic Zones and the high seas. The reports were presented at a recent UN Conference to assist participating states in establishing an international framework for more efficient conservation and management of these stocks.