Iran's Minister of Agricultural Jihad Sadeq Khalilian is attending the 31st FAO (the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization) Conference for the Near East (NERC) in Rome.

Khalilian arrived at Rome's International Airport on Wednesday to take part in the FAO Conference for the Near East (NERC) which will be held from May 14 to 18.

Iran's ambassador to Italy welcome Khalilian at the airport. Khalilian is scheduled to address the FAO conference on Thursday. A number of heads of state and representatives of 192 member countries are participating in the meeting.

The Regional conference may make recommendations on priority subjects and needs for technical assistance in agricultural and rural development in the region to member nations in the region, to FAO Conference and Council, to the FAO Regional Office and FAO technical departments.

To this end, FAO, in a statement, said on Wednesday that fragile and limited natural resources, a rapid population growth and demand for food are on the rise.

FAO Director-General Jose Graziano da Silva in his remarks at the conference today proposed the creation of a Near Eastern Trust Fund to advance food security in the region.

Addressing the FAO Regional Conference for the Near East, Graziano da Silva noted that FAO, at the request African Member Countries, was helping draw up an African Food Security Trust Fund, in which civil society and the private sector were also due to participate.

"A similar effort could also exist in the Near East," he declared.

OECD has recently reported a fall in international development assistance because of the global recession and it is therefore important that countries, especially higher-income developing countries "commit to additional funding and sharing agricultural and rural development experiences among one another," Graziano da Silva noted.