FAO and Austria seek new ways to share knowledge and build growth in agriculture

17 January, Berlin – FAO Director-General QU Dongyu and Austria’s Minister for Sustainability and Tourism, Elisabeth Koestinger, discussed the critical role of technology and digitalization in agriculture when they met at the 2020 Global Forum for Food and Agriculture in Berlin today.

Qu thanked Austria for its active contribution to FAO and said he looked forward to building triangular cooperation between FAO, Austria and recipient countries to speed up the implementation of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

The Director-General noted the highly-developed, mountainous country had a lot of experience that would be relevant to similar landlocked countries and asked Austria to share this knowledge.

The parties agreed to strengthen their joint work on forestry, digitalization, rural development and gender mainstreaming.

Minister Koestinger and the Director-General also discussed ways of using new technologies for food, agriculture and nutrition and how to scale up the joint FAO/IAEA programme that focuses on developing and adapting nuclear technologies for agriculture.