FAO ANNUAL MEETING WITH THE LIVESTOCK PRIVATE SECTOR Opening Remarks

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Dear Colleagues,

I am happy to see so many friends, including some new ones.

I remember in early 2019, when I started the campaign to be the FAO Director-General, I had a meeting with the private sector in New York and in Argentina. I remember that the majority of the private sector that came to my meeting was from the animal husbandry sector. I realized that animal husbandry had not been given much political attention by FAO previously because the focus was more on the International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC), which is a big gathering that followed a classical method of work for over 80 years.

But the IPPC is only one part of the big business, which also includes milk and meat among others.

So, welcome dear friends to the FAO Annual Meeting with the Livestock Private Sector organizations.

In September 2023, FAO hosted the first ever Global Conference on Sustainable Livestock Transformation.

Globally, 70 percent of people still do not have enough milk, meat, eggs and other animal proteins with affordable prices. About 20 percent of poor people in Rome do not have fish because the cost is too high, and their purchasing power is declining.

We need to produce more with less.

This meeting will be held annually to maintain momentum and strengthen our collective efforts to address challenges and harness opportunities in the livestock sector.

I have less than three years remaining as FAO Director-General and I intend to maintain my promise to hold this meeting every year, and all of you will be invited to make your voices heard, and to provide your professional, scientific-based recommendations to governments and decision and policymakers. That is very important.

Livestock production is a vital part of our agrifood systems, for livelihoods and global economic development. This is undoubtedly understood by everyone in this room, but how many people beyond this room really understand?

They drink milk, but they forget where milk comes from. A lot of people think that milk comes from the supermarket and my grandchild told me that milk comes from the internet, from AI because all the milk is sourced online in China when actually the milk is coming from Grassland or cow breeding stations in China, even as far as from Tasmania in Australia, like some cherries from Chile.  They just order it online and deliver it to the homes.

I always say “agrifood” systems not just “food” systems because if you leave out agriculture you are omitting the raw materials needed to produce foods – it’s not just about their processes.

Of course, some food production needs processing, while others require only post-harvest treatment. Processing is a scientific process, which may be required to produce juice from oranges for example, but for others it is needed just for peeling the oranges.

In my hometown, they produce a lot of cans, and they peel the oranges and export it to Europe.

I am saying this because livestock production comprises the whole industry, it is not just about production.  

As a key contributor to the transformation of global agrifood systems to be more efficient, more inclusive, more resilient and more sustainable.

I always say the “four mores”, not only “one more”. I changed my colleagues wording: they always talk about “more sustainable”, but sustainable is the end objective. You need bridges, you need tools to reach this final objective.

To this you need to first improve efficiency, because you use limited resources, land, water and animal feed, to produce more. That is basic, otherwise you could not meet the demand, and the opportunity to improve the environment, because you waste too much energy resources such as land, water and others.

For instance, for one cow they need the water per capita consumption of eight people at least. 

When I was a local government leader, I said we should first base ourselves on how much water is available and then measure the development of cows in Ningxia. 

We can however improve the water efficiency by new cow breeds, new animal feed and new management methods. And we can produce high quality milk with the same water quota. That was about 20 years ago, when I started. 

The livestock sector faces pressing challenges from the impacts of the climate crisis, livestock diseases, environmental degradation, biodiversity loss and equitable access to resources, among others.

You know the problems, so what we want is to discuss the solutions, a package of solutions, not just individual, technical solutions.

We have to convince our politicians, decision makers, policy makers to understand the whole picture - the holistic approach. Because, each sector, each expert, has its own single approach. 

When I was Vice-President of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, I thought I already had a lot of good suggestions and recommendations with concrete solutions.

But when I told these to the top leader in the province he finally understood because no one had explained it to him before. That is because experts just say cows are important, cattle are important, water is important, but they never come with solutions to solve the problem – this is the bridge we need.

I really hope that after this meeting you will have a better understanding of what FAO should do globally and nationally; what we should do and what the sector should do. I know you have a lot of sectors to think about, a lot of solutions and recommendations. We need to think in a horizontal and vertical manner, for the politicians and for the business community.

These challenges are complex and require holistic design, close collaboration, “jumping-out of the box” innovation, and coordinated action to turn them into opportunities.

I consider myself as a professional persuader to the politicians – I prefer the term bridge because it brings them closer to understanding what is important on the agenda.

I visited Australia last year and I talked with one lady, a cow farmer, and now has a total of about 300 cows. She has been following a very scientific approach. For this reason, I invited her to come tell her story at the World Food Forum in October, under the Science and Innovation Forum because science and innovation leads the change through best practice, by good examples, by pragmatic solutions, not academic solutions.

That is the way we want. That is why I really appreciate you making time to come, to dialogue with people here. Some Ambassadors and Counsellors are here, but they are not experts. They are from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. You should convince your own diplomats first. I said, ‘we need the milk and the meat’.

That is why in 2020 FAO Members established the Sub-Committee on Livestock of the FAO Committee on Agriculture, as an important global platform to discuss and build consensus on livestock issues and advise FAO’s work in this sector.

Through the Sub-Committee you now have a voice, you have a platform, so please make use of it. That is an instrument, that is a real mechanism to provide insight into the FAO Governing Bodies.

We should fully understand food security not only as a staple food. 

But, nutritious food has different components. And then from nutritious food to healthy food, even more varieties are needed. That is why East Asia has the highest level of the nutritious healthy food in the world. It is not the highest based on the economic GDPs.

I travelled to more than 160 countries, a lot with much higher GDP, three times higher than Asia. But their lifestyles are at higher level. The first level is basic. The second is nutritional. The third is healthy foods and the fourth is functional food – which is only in Asia, some Indigenous Peoples in Africa and in Latin America, they enjoy functional foods, herbal food.

So, if you look at food security at the four levels - and compare them with the three dimensions of food availability, food accessibility and food affordability, you will find there are 12 combinations of situations.

Then, you can use this methodology to measure status of food security for each family, each community, each province or state, each city or each country.

Then, for food availability there is no problem in most countries. We especially talk about the first and second levels. If you encourage people to support livestock, you should move up. For nutritious and healthy food, you need meat and milk (but not over consumption), and functional food.

Some parts of the animal proteins are functional. Not only nutritious, not only healthy, but they also have a special function. That is the way to promote your production, otherwise it is just about the nutrition level.

Dear colleagues,

I do not want to talk too much, but a private-public partnership has a huge potential. It is one of the basic partnerships to lead to the transformation of agrifood systems. If we only depend on public, it is not efficient. If we only depend on the private, you lose your strategy. A lot of private sectors do not have a strategy. Only big companies have some strategies. But when you change your CEO, you change your action plan.

That is why the public and private cooperation and partnership is key to playing a complementary role to lead the sustainable transformation of agrifood systems, including livestock.

I wish you all the best for that, and we will work together. I commit myself - I will be determined to do so, and I will try my best.

I wish you all the best.

Thank you.