Bilateral meeting with the Federal Minister for Food and Agriculture of Germany – H.E. Cem Özdemir

Miyazaki - The FAO Director-General, QU Dongyu, met with H.E. Cem Özdemir, German Federal Minister for Food and Agriculture on the margins of the G7 Agriculture Ministers’ Meeting in Miyazaki, Japan. 

The Minister appraised the Director-General for successes achieved over the past four years. He congratulated the Director-General for effectively leading the Organization in providing support to Members in overcoming difficulties, facing challenges and finding solutions to the global crises in the spirit of solidarity. The Minister specifically commended FAO’s work on leading and coordinating the follow-up actions of the UN Food Systems Summit, supporting Germany under its 2022 G7 Presidency to advance the collective action for food security, including the Global Alliance for Food Security (GAFS), strengthening science and innovation across the Organization’s work, building a stronger and more efficient FAO, and for achieving significant increases in resources mobilization.

Looking ahead, the Minister expressed German’s interest to continue working with FAO on addressing the climate crisis, achieving SDGs 1 and 2 and related cross-cutting issues, especially through joint projects in the areas of agrifood systems transformation, food loss and waste, Committee on World Food Security (CFS), and integrated soil and water management.

The Director-General thanked the Minister and Germany for the support provided, and emphasized the need to change the business model to ensure urgent global challenges and important issues are properly addressed.

The Director-General appreciated the leadership provided by Germany under its 2022 G7 Presidency to advance the collective action for food security. He assured the Minister that a “Digital FAO” which he has been putting in place is contributing significantly to the building of a transparent and efficient UN Organization. In that respect, the Director-General encouraged Germany to increase its contributions to FAO to enable the Organization to do even more and better together.