IICA: Sixteen Key Messages That United the Americas on the Road to the UN Food Systems Summit

ROME, July 26, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — The countries of the Americas will attend the UN Food Systems Summit with a common position, arrived at by consensus, after days of extensive debate, in which they defined the principles and key messages that they will defend collectively and in a coordinated manner at the global forum. The Summit will aim to establish commitments and measures to improve the world’s food systems.

The Summit was convened by UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, with the aim of placing the planet on the path to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – proposals that are intended to establish a framework for global peace and prosperity.

The unity in action posture was approved at the recent meeting of the Executive Committee of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), in which the 31 participating countries endorsed a resolution stating that farmers must be duly represented at the Summit and their central role in the provision of food must be recognized.

The unified position of the countries of the Americas is centered around 16 key messages and will be demonstrated, starting in July, at the Pre-Summit of the global meeting in Rome. These principles are included in the document "On the road to the UN Food Systems Summit: key messages from the perspective of agriculture in the Americas", which the countries themselves contributed to, through coordinated work with IICA.  

The document contains 16 key messages about the critical role of agriculture, stressing that farmers and food systems’ workers are an essential and central chain in food systems, and that without agricultural production there would be no raw material to transform into food.

The messages also define agriculture as a fundamental activity in eradicating poverty, driving rural development and protecting the natural environment.

The Food Systems Pre-Summit will be held in Rome from 26 – 28 July.  IICA’s Director General Manuel Otero will actively participate, as a member of the Summit Champions Network—one of the meeting’s support structures—which it joined in its capacity as a representative of the agriculture and rural sectors of North America, Latin America and the Caribbean.

IICA proposed these general principles:

  • Farmers should be duly represented
  • Decisions and policies must be science-based
  • Agriculture is part of the solution to the main problems facing humanity

Contact:
Guido Nejamkis
5491161594757

315120@email4pr.com

SOURCE Inter-American Institute for the Cooperation on Agriculture