WORLD FOOD FORUM 2025 GLOBAL YOUTH FORUM OPENING CEREMONY Opening Statement

Dear Young Colleagues and Friends,

Dear Leaders of Today and Tomorrow,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

As salam alaikum,

早上好 (Zǎo Shang Hao),

Welcome to the Opening Ceremony of the 2025 World Food Forum Global Youth Forum!

This is a historic year.

FAO turns 80!

On 16 October – World Food Day – we will celebrate FAO’s 80th Birthday.

The World Food Day was recommended by Hungary's Minister at the time in 1979, who was a renowned scientist. This initiative was officially endorsed by a UN resolution in 1981. This year, we will celebrate the 44th World Food Day. Additionally, FAO is marking its 80th anniversary.

For 80 years, FAO has been working for a world free of hunger and malnutrition – this is our mandate.

To put it simply for young people: agriculture may not be fully understood as a profession. Let me clarify what agriculture and food entail, as well as the role of FAO – the Food and Agriculture Organization. We focus on producing food, animal feed, and fibers, such as cotton and flax, along with biofuels, particularly biomass. Biogas and biomass serve as sources of fuel. Additionally, fashion plays a role in this—many expensive clothes are derived from agricultural products. Ultimately, agriculture is tied to all these resources.

We need tourism to be integrated with agrifood systems and ecosystems, supported by natural fun. You can refer to this as the '5 Fs' or '6 Fs.'

During this year’s World Food Day, we will also open the doors to the new FAO Food and Agriculture Museum and Network.

I have just delivered the opening speech for the Indigenous Peoples Territory, marking its significant presence at the World Food Forum. Each year, the Indigenous Peoples community gathers at the FAO headquarters, proudly showcasing their symbolic tents.

The FAO should be a home for Indigenous communities because all farmers and all humans originate from these communities. It's important to remember our ancestors; when we forget them, we lose sight of where we come from. This may lead to future generations forgetting their own heritage, as they learn from us to disregard their roots. This cycle represents a kind of recycling of cultural memory.

You will be able to see for yourself how art and culture are the universal languages of food, and it will inspire you to take action to work with us in fulfilling our mandate.

Food is our identity. Food is our community. Food is our creativity. Food is an essential part of our culture.

Dear Young Friends,

Today is about looking forward, to the future that youth are already shaping.

You are not just guests; you are the architects of the future.

We open this World Food Forum week with you, our changemakers, because the Global Youth Forum is the living expression of FAO’s founding dream: of a world where no one is hungry.

This Forum is an engine, turning ideas into action, so help us to switch on this motor and move full speed ahead!

We need your energy and your speed to transform global agrifood systems to be more efficient, more inclusive, more resilient and more sustainable.

A better foods-secure future depends on all of us working better together, across generations and across borders.

No one understands this better than the youth, and no one can make it happen better than the youth. You are representatives of the future.

Transformation is not built on ceremonies or speeches – this is old-fashioned!

We need to modernize, we need to build on your fresh energy and courage, for real action!

Over the past six years, we have experienced three remarkable transformations in this very room. The first was addressing critical security concerns. When I was elected on 23 June 2019, I delivered a speech of gratitude, expressing my deep concern about the precarious state of the hanging nets. I feared that if they were to fall, it could result in a disaster, capturing international headlines for all wrong reasons. I sincerely thank the host country for its support in improving security, especially during the pandemic. Now, what we have achieved has evolved into a masterpiece of art that is connected to Rome.

Second, if someone takes the subway, we have now connected this element with the Circo Massimo subway.

This vision forms an essential link to the third thing which is the exciting unveiling of the FAO Museum and Network, an initiative we are honoured to launch in collaboration with the esteemed President Mattarella of Italy.

So, action leads to change, not talking. Sometimes we need to speak, of course, to reach consensus and work coherently, but after talking, 90 percent of the time we need action.

We need to be cool, together! I know you like to be cool. Personally, I never wear a jacket, regardless of whether it's -40 or +40 degrees— I always try to stay cool all year round.

So, this week I invite you to connect with one another – in the meeting rooms, in the coffee shops – or rather coffee corners. The Polish Bar could previously accommodate only about 20 to 40 people at a time. Now, we can host up to 4,000 if needed.  You can take your coffee, head to the corner, and then move to the front garden.

It is now a welcoming and eco-friendly place to enjoy your coffee, tea, and have a nice conversation.

I am very happy that you are the first group to use FAO's security room this morning.

Many years from now, when you share your experiences with your children or grandchildren, they may take it for granted, having no idea what it was truly like. Each generation has its own mission, mandate, and commitment to effect change.

I encourage you to make friends at FAO and build your global network. While you are young and full of energy, you have the ability to connect with one another, support each other, and foster mutual understanding. This is what true global solidarity looks like.

You can share all your feelings, insights, findings, and discoveries on social media, whether it's TikTok, Instagram, or any of the other platforms like X, Y, or Z. As a scientist, I appreciate X, but we should also consider Y and Z, as they represent three dimensions of understanding.

Connect your voices, your ideas, your innovations – and above all connect with FAO’s Four Betters, and our mandate.

The first is better production – connect to discuss how you can push for farmers to produce smarter.

The second one is better nutrition – connect to discuss how we can better feed the world and ensure that everyone has access to a healthy diet.

The third one is a better environment – how can you fight even harder for a better planet so that it can feed all of us, while still protecting nature and our ecosystems.

And the fourth is a better life. In my opinion, this is the most important issue. While we are living on this planet, we all deserve a better quality of life, regardless of whether we are poor or rich, young or old, or simply young at heart.

What can you do individually and together to make sure that all people in this world can live a life with dignity, with opportunity, and with justice – and above all, where we don’t leave any person or community behind.

These are the Four Betters. They are not abstract questions. They are the design of how we want to move forward – they are our picture of a better future.

In any community, organization, country, big or small, and even in any family, you need the Four Betters to improve your life and way of living. This is philosophical thinking.

Dear Friends,

When I look at your generation, I see one that refuses to accept limits: There are no ceilings, especially now that so many tools are available. With popular terms like AI, BI, BT, and the digital world of IT, the possibilities are endless.

You are not waiting to inherit the future from us, the so-called “old” people. It's not about age; it's about a mindset. In my opinion, being mentally old is like being conservative. If you are overly conservative, you risk creating a generational gap between yourself and the younger generation. I always seek to bridge that gap between us. 

I try to live as sustainably as possible. There's a Chinese proverb that humorously suggests that if an old cucumber turns yellow, one can simply paint it green and pretend it's still young. However, true youthfulness comes from being young at heart, not just appearing young on the surface.

You are standing up to the challenges.

You are creating start-ups.

You are opening National Youth Chapters.

You are leaders, not necessarily in administrative roles. You are forging the path to change the world in the future.

You are raising your voice in global debates.

And you are showing the world that youth are not to be undervalued in global decision-making

So, I invite you not just to participate, but to lead.

Speak boldly. Listen generously. Challenge each other and lift each other up.

This Global Youth Forum is not a stage.

It is a springboard for global action.

What begins here in Rome must continue in your communities, your schools, your fields, your kitchens, your cities, with your friends and your families.

As FAO turns 80, we are celebrating history, and we are handing you the pen to write the new chapter.

A chapter where “better together” is not a slogan, but a way of working, a way of living, a way of transforming our agrifood systems, of changing the world to make it a better place for all.

You are the movement.

By being better together we can deliver better foods and a better future for all.

I am genuinely delighted that the President of ECOSOC, the Ambassador from Nepal, has made the journey all the way from New York to be with you today. His presence here speaks volumes; he is not here for me or for FAO, but for you, representatives of the future. You represent the future, and he wants to connect with that future. This is the hope of the United Nations.

Thank you. Thank you very much.