SCIENCE AND INNOVATION FORUM 2024 Inclusive Agrifood Systems Innovation: From Ideas to Impact Opening Remarks

Honourable Minister from Costa Rica,

My close friend Under-Secretary Robert Bonnie from the United States,

Excellences,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I also wish to recognize the special Representative from San Marino and Egypt. The territory of San Marino is much smaller than Italy, but you have so much to offer from traditional technology to science. As I always say, no matter how big or how small, you have something special to offer, to share.

Which brings me to today’s topic: inclusiveness. We need inclusiveness not only in technology and science, but also in other areas such as business models.

When defining something, like inclusiveness, I always start with why, how, what, where, and when. I think we should focus more on my understanding of inclusiveness for science and innovation, especially for cutting edge technology.

If you are a scientist, what does inclusiveness mean? You should wait for people to follow you. Because a lot of scientists, especially cutting-edge scientists, are always complaining about politicians and society that they do not understand the substance, what makes it so special, so revolutionary. I always told my colleagues, when I was Vice President of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, I said please, do more public lectures, or talk with some key persons to try convincing them to understand your business and project. 

Second, politicians. Nowadays, internationally most politicians are elected, and they have no background on science. So, being a politician, you have to learn it.

That is why at the opening ceremony of the World Food Forum, in the Global Youth Forum, I said that in order to be leaders you have to be open and willing to learn and get different ideas from different groups. Some groups of scientists say it is so good, some others say that AI is so dangerous, I know. a lot of people talk about AI, some in favour and some are afraid.

The other day I met a senior scientist. He was so afraid of AI. I joked with him and told him “How many years are you going to stay on this planet? Maybe 10 years? 20 Years? Do not worry, be happy. You have limited time. Yes, I am a biologist, you are more than 80 years old. Do not worry too much. If you are more than 18 years old, you have to worry.”

As senior professionals you have to be open. I am so fortunate. Our former Deputy Director-Generals Dan Gustafson and Laurent Thomas were quite open. At least, they could understand.

Let us all show inclusivity.

Politicians should be open, willing to learn and balance different opinions. Those who are in the FAO Staff, or in general those who are working for agriculture, in the United States of America, China, Costa Rica, San Marino or Italy. The Ministers of Agriculture, or the staff in the Ministries of Agriculture and FAO, we are a little bit in between, you know. Scientists are considered as politicians or leaders.  We are humble servants, professional servants. Society, farmers and business people, they consider us to be leaders. We are professional leaders. You should. You have to. You must understand our business. That is what put pressure on us.

We should balance the political, social and economic point of view, even the ethical point of view. That is why I joined the Rome Call for AI Ethics. I was the earliest. I started five years ago. Personally, I was a scientist, I was a local vice Governor, I was a Vice-Minister in China, so I feel from three angles at least that people would need some answers. Maybe I am not 100 percent correct, but we should offer some answer for leading the people to try to understand the issues. Therefore, I encourage most of you, from the Minister of Agriculture, from the US Department of Agriculture, and so forth. We should balance at least the four angles: political, economic, social, and scientific.

Economic, of course, they have from Governments, from private, from farmers, from us. You cannot ask farmers to always plant trees, waiting for 20 years later to have an economic return. I always remind my colleague from the forestry department: if you do not have a salary, how can I ask you to give yourself 100 hectares to plant trees? And for the next 20 years, without an income? That is not pragmatic, that is not a realistic solution, even for forestry. Of course, that is why I am lucky I work with flowers and vegetables. In 40 days, I can harvest and have some return on my money. That is why we have horticulture, because it is commercialized from generation to generation, it does not matter if it is in the United States, or Italy or China or Africa that works with horticulture, with crops, vegetables and flowers are always commercialized first, because it pushes us to think quickly and deliver quickly.

Therefore, even within agricultural technology, there are so many different scenarios and levels of tolerance and inclusivity. For that, FAO is a platform, again – especially the Science and Innovation Forum.

I really appreciate my friend, Under Secretary Mr Bonnie from the United States , it is the third time he comes to FAO, excluding the one pandemic year, so he came almost every year. I really appreciate that you took your time to come. It is not easy to travel from the USA to here – not even from the neighborhoods here in Italy, very frankly, I told to some European Ministers, “FAO is a platform, you are fortunate it is hosted in Italy. If it was hosted in the United States, you would have to travel at least nine hours”. From Asia Pacific, it takes two days: first, they go to Hawaii to San Francisco to Rome. Look how many Ministers from Europe came. They do not appreciate that their ancestors struggled to move from Washington DC to Rome. After six rounds of voting, they finally got their 32 votes and agreed to move here. There were 28 who wanted to stay in the United States. But now if we voted, maybe it would be different.

You need to be open and inclusive.

Thank you. Thank you so much.