Conference and expo on sustainable natural resources and their value chains - Nuts

FAO and UNECE today organized the Conference and expo on sustainable natural resources and their value chains - Nuts.

The joint event started by an exhibition and tasting of nuts and dry fruit from all over the world co-hosted by The Ambassadors of Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan. As a side event of the UNECE 66th session of the Specialized Section on Standardization of Dry and Dried Produce, the joint FAO/UNECE Conference and Expo aimed to highlight the contribution of wild or forests nuts to sustainable development, including bio-diversity, local communities, employment generation, natural resources managementandsupply chain integration. The exposition and tasting of nuts provided the participants with a first-hand glimpse of the actual products grown in the forests and informed them about forest communities, their environment and their value chains.

Ms Carolyn Rodrigues Birkett, Director of the FAO Liaison Office in Geneva delivered opening remarks at the Conference. She welcomed the long and fruitful collaboration with UNECE in a number of areas, and encouraged the continuation of intellectual discourse on sustainability of natural resources.

 “FAO promotes the transition to sustainable and climate-resilient agricultural policies and governance mechanisms…support members countries to strengthen cross-sectoral dialogue... works with public and private institutions to strengthen capacities…assists producers in adopting production systems that increase productivity and resilience”, said Ms Rodrigues-Birkett.

Nuts have become one of the most highly demanded agro-products in the world and an economically very important non-timber forest product. The nut industry represents a big part of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and labour force in several countries in Africa, Central Asia and Latin America, but faces numerous economic, social and environmental challenges.