Minister Czesław Siekierski participated in session 1 “Promoting sustainable production”.

During the kick-off conference, the Forum participants listened to the speeches delivered by the Minister of Food and Agriculture of the Federal Republic of Germany Cem Özdemir and Director General of the SEKEM Initiative in Egypt Helma Abouleish.

Cost-effectiveness of agricultural production as a prerequisite to food security

– Switching towards sustainable production must be adequately compensated to the agricultural producers. Cost-effectiveness of agricultural production is a prerequisite to the successful transformation of the food systems and ensuring food security – emphasized the Head of the Polish Ministry of Agriculture.

Equilibrium and productivity in agriculture

Minister Siekierski noted that the recent years have brought a series of unforeseen and serious turmoil on the global food market caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, extreme weather conditions and wars.

– The disturbances in the operation of agricultural markets being the consequence of these events pose a threat to the continued equilibrium of the food system, create the risk for ensuring global food security and limit the capacity of the agricultural market to involve in the implementation of the ambitious environmental and climate goals – said the Polish Minister and added that we must remember, that the superior objective of agriculture is to ensure food security for the growing global population. This means that we need a sustainable and at the same time highly productive agriculture, which on the one hand preserves the natural resources, while on the other hand benefits from the opportunities offered by bioenergy and bioeconomy.

– The measures we take must however take into account the balance between the environmental and climate goals and the adequate level of food production. Although the climate actions are necessary, they cannot lead to a decreased capacity of agricultural production and in effect to inability to supply food to the humans, including in particular to these who have been already suffering from hunger - said Minister Siekierski.

Competitiveness and innovation of agriculture

The Head of the Polish Ministry of Agriculture pointed out that if the agriculture is not the effective supplier of high quality food and if it is not competitive and innovative, meeting the food security challenge will be impossible. In the light of these challenges there is a need to place the agriculture and food security among the highest global and EU priorities.

– When pursuing this goal, we need to make use of the innovation, new technologies and better practices of agricultural production, which are able to reduce the environmental pressure, while increasing the capacity and productivity. We may see the opportunities for reconciliation of often conflicting economic, environmental and social goals in development and adaptation of the new technologies – stated Minister Siekierski and added that with a view of increasing frequency and gravity of the challenges we face, we should strive to find the crisis and risk management instruments, which will contribute to ensuring the agri-food market stability at the global level. These schemes should be launched in a transparent manner, based on clear rules and data analysis, taking the local conditions into account.

About the event

The conference organised on the occasion of the 14^th Global Forum for Food and Agriculture (GFFA) was attended by the ministers of agriculture from more than 70 states throughout the world and the representatives of over a dozen international organisations.

Joint Communication of the Ministers of Agriculture

The meeting ended with publication of a joint communication, in which the ministers took their stand on the issue of world hunger.

With a view to promoting sustainable production, the ministers obliged themselves to:

• continue transformation towards more resilient and sustainable agriculture and food systems and to implement the 2030 Agenda in order to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, especially SDG2 “Zero Hunger”;
• strive to reduce the negative environmental, climate and biodiversity impacts of agriculture and food production and to enhance the positive ones;
• promote healthy food consumption choices and healthy diets and to reduce food loss and waste;
• promote sustainable livestock management practices to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the agricultural sector;
• promote fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising from the use of genetic resources;
• promote the effective water, soil and fertiliser management;
• support research and innovation in agriculture.

With a view to fostering resilient and sustainable supply chains, the ministers obliged themselves to:

• support a rules-based, open, safe and transparent trading system with the World Trade Organisation (WTO) at its core;
• strengthen the position of farmers, in particular smallholder and medium-size farmers, to facilitate their participation in markets and production;
• take care of availability and price affordability of safe and nutritious food for all.

With a view to reducing food loss and waste, the ministers obliged themselves to:

• reduce food loss and waste along the entire supply chain (the aim to be achieved is to halve per capita global food waste at retail and consumer levels and to reduce food losses along the production and supply chains by 2030);
• scale up investments in research and development, in particular in preventing and reducing post-harvest, storage and transport food losses and waste;
• strive to promote the donation of surplus food, or food nearing the end of its shelf-life;
• support development of circular economy;
• promote consumer education and information initiatives on the ways to prevent and reduce food waste.

With a view to strengthening vulnerable group, the ministers obliged themselves to:

• take actions to provide available and affordable food for all, in particular the vulnerable groups: women, children, people at risk of marginalisation, discrimination and poverty;
• develop the policies to attract and maintain youth, women and new entrants to the agri-food sector and to strengthen the co-creation and transfer of knowledge and skills to address the evolving needs of all those working in the sector as well as to strengthen global and local food security;
• strive to improve access to productive resources such as land, water, financing, seeds, fertilisers and genetic resources, in particular for vulnerable groups.

When summarising the deliberations of the today’s Forum, Minister Czesław Siekierski emphasized that in view of warfare beyond our eastern border and in the Middle East and disturbances in the other regions of the world, fighting against hunger and ensuring food security are of the key importance. Meeting these challenges requires ensuring cost-effectiveness of agricultural production to the holdings. The farmers should receive adequate support under the EU CAP and the measures taken at the national level.