In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

Mr. Chairman,
Excellencies,
Distinguished Governors,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

We are pleased to witness the Thirtieth Anniversary of IFAD and institution with specific mandate of reducing rural poverty and hunger in the world. I would like to express my gratitude to the Government and the people of Italy for hosting this important event. I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere thanks to Mr. Lennart Bäge, the President of IFAD and his colleagues for all efforts and arrangements made to organize this meeting.

Mr. Chairman,
Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

The Thirty-first Session of the Governing Council of IFAD is being held while extreme poverty remains a daily reality for more than 850 million people.

Climate change will likely exacerbate this trend.

At the time being the world agriculture is at a crossroads due to: more mouths to be fed, population vulnerable to hunger is on the rise, progress towards achieving the MDGs has been unsatisfactory, investment in urban centres is depriving agriculture from its relative share, the rapid depletion of natural resources is raising grave concerns on the sustainability of agriculture and also disincentives and barriers on agriculture imports from developing countries is a source of major concern.

Although the existence of the recent attention made on eradicating poverty through MDG 1 which shows a turning of attitude of international community in favour of more support for agriculture could be hope, but, the international concerns raised by challenges like climate change, water scarcity and globalization are still remained, particularly for developing and low income countries.

The Islamic Republic of Iran, as a leading country in the south-west Asia, continues its support, cooperation and collaboration with IFAD to play its role in mitigating of poverty and hunger in the world. We have been active in various international meetings and conferences in the past several years, taken important steps at national and regional level in materializing these objectives.

In the three past decades, great strides have been taken in Iran to reform the structure of agriculture and rural sectors and promote sustainable food production. The results of these efforts are reflected in different indicators of sector growth, food security and self-sufficiency.

In the last 25 years, agriculture production increased by annually 2.4 million tons to more than 100 million tons in 2007, from just 25.6 million tons in 1977. These figures indicate, in spite of several successive droughts hit agriculture and rural life in Iran, the per capita agricultural production almost doubled.

The nation achieved self-sufficiency in many crops, especially wheat after several decades.

Pursuing the policy of increasing the share of animal proteins in the nutrition pattern of the Iranians, the government took a wide range of measures to facilitate the growth in this sub-sector. As a result, the production of livestock products increased annually by 4.2 per cent to more than 10.7 million tons in 2007.

The production of aquatics increased annually by three per cent to 575,000 tons in the same year which mainly came from inland water bodies.

The I.R. of Iran also introduced its new forest policy and economic tools, aiming to strengthen public participation in the fields of planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of forestry programmes by emphasizing the role of private sector, NGOs and local communities.

The main goal of this policy is to conserve biodiversity and natural ecosystems aiming to conserve rare species and natural sites. The forest policy also aims to develop forests through restorations of forests. One of the ways is to develop forest resources that is becoming popular, is to plant popular and multi-purpose trees that can be accounted as ways to conserve natural forests, and landscape.

The I.R of Iran, within 4 decades of extensive work has carried out various projects to conserve soil erosion and control shifting sand dunes, aquifers and watershed management.

This has prevented soil erosion and protected bio resources, industrial and residential with by establishing 2 billion ha of man-made forests in arid and semi-arid regions in the country, aimed at development of forests, conservation of biological diversity, development of environmental service of forests, and climate change mitigation.
Regarding the genetic resources, Iran with more than 12,000 different plant varieties has got a high rank in Near-East countries as a major source of crop origination and diversity, and will continue to work towards materializing the full implementation of the treaty on plant genetic resources.

As about food safety and food quality, there was a growing awareness and sensitivity among the various stakeholders, resulting in the incorporation of food safety and environmental issues in the majority of agricultural development and crop expansion programmes. A set of specific policies and programmes adopted to reduce the use of pesticides and fertilizers, minimize the risks associated with animal drugs and heavy metals, as well as other pollutants in agriculture.

Mr. Chairman,
Distinguished audience,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

At the end, we are pleased to share our experiences in our advancement in the agriculture sector with all member countries of IFAD. We express best wishes for the further future success of IFAD in its noble objective of eradication of poverty in rural areas and look forward to a continued international effort to address mitigating of poverty and hunger, and food security in the world for a sustainable agriculture and better life for all.

I thank you very much.