Global Forum on Food Security and Nutrition (FSN Forum)

Debra Turner, Gary Pierzynski, Zineb Bazza and Ronald Vargas

facilitators of the consultation, FAO
Italy

Dear colleagues and contributors,

The online consultation for contributions to the Code of Conduct on Fertilizer Management (CoCoFe) is now officially closed. We had close to ninety responses during the Forum and as mentioned before they come from many different stakeholders, including the fertilizer industry, academia, the public sector, research institutions, farmer organizations and many others. It has been very interesting and enlightening to read the variety of responses received and all of them will be considered when drafting the first CoCoFe document. 

Now that the consultation has ended, the Intergovernmental Technical Panel on Soils (ITPS) will lead and oversee the work of producing the CoCoFe. This will include appointing a special Task Force to provide technical and expert advice to the ITPS on various aspects related to the management of fertilizers, as well as to assist the writing team in producing a first-draft CoCoFe over the coming two months. The ITPS will conduct a detailed review of the draft in mid-April 2018.

An open-ended working group will be established to review and finalize the draft CoCoFe in late April 2018. Our member countries will select members of the open-ended working group so as to represent the global regions. The working group will also include representatives from multiple stakeholders including academia, industry and civil society.

The CoCoFe will be submitted to the Global Soil Partnership (GSP) Plenary Assembly on 11-13 June 2018. If endorsed, it will be submitted to the Committee on Agriculture (COAG) in September 2018, and subsequently to FAO Council in December 2018.

We will provide updates and any relevant information on the development of the CoCoFe through the FSN Forum and our other relevant networks, including the GSP, to let you all know how things are progressing.

Again, the ITPS, the GSP and FAO thank everyone that participated in this online discussion and for the excellent quality and highly thoughtful comments and feedback that we received. The feedback will certainly benefit the future Code of Conduct on Fertilizer Management document, as well as achieve its aim to manage nutrients more sustainably in the future for more efficient food production systems with increased food security, and with less impacts on the environment, society and and human health.



Warm regards from,

Debra, Gary, Zineb and Ronald (Facilitators of the consultation) and the Forum support team.