G7 ministers meet to improve agricultural security and sustainability

The Ministers of Agriculture of the countries of the G7 started today in the city japanese of Miyazaki (southwest) the first of two days of meetings in which the improvement of food security and agricultural sustainability will be central.

The meetings take place at a time marked by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, one of the largest grain producers and exporters in the world, whose activity has been affected by the war, which is causing a rise in prices that is having a particularly impact to the poorest countries.

During this weekend’s discussions, the heads of Agriculture from the Group of Seven (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States), will be joined by the industry representative of the European Union , they will discuss how to increase agricultural productivity in a sustainable way.

Concerns about the stability of food supplies due to climate change have been compounded by concerns about more recent factors such as the Russo-Ukrainian war and infectious diseases, following not so distant problems in this regard during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Talk about increasing agricultural production is rarely a major topic at G7 meetings, partly because its members include some of the world’s largest exporters, such as the United States; But for Japan, a resource-poor country whose food self-sufficiency stood at a low of 38% in 2021, increasing agricultural productivity is key.

Under his chairmanship of the group, Tokyo wants to highlight this point and seeks to appeal to other members to participate in a UN project to support small food producers in developing countries, according to government sources.

Agricultural sustainability will be another of the central issues that will be brought up during the Agriculture ministerial meetings.

Issues such as reducing the environmental impact of agricultural activities, reducing the use of chemical fertilizers or the use in the sector of advanced technologies such as robots and drones will be addressed.

“Innovation is definitely key to feeding a growing population and doing it sustainably,” said during this first day the Canadian Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Marie-Claude Bibeau, in statements collected by the local news agency Kyodo.

For her part, British Minister Trudy Harrison stressed the importance of experimenting with new policies to support farmers towards better environmental management in countries where, like the UK, most of the land is arable and where farmers are “absolutely vital to the solutions.”

It is expected that on Sunday, at the end of their meetings, a joint declaration will be adopted in which they refer to the objective of “zero hunger” by 2030 from the United Nations, a condemnation of Russian aggression and support for Ukrainian agricultural and export reconstruction, and an action plan for sustainability.

The choice of Miyazaki as the venue for the G7 Agriculture meeting is not accidental. The namesake prefecture is known for its livestock and mangoes, and its self-sufficiency ratio to production value is the highest in Japan since 2019.

Source: EFE