Mr Kanayo Nwanze, President of IFAD
Governors of IFAD Council
Distinguished participants
Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am pleased and honoured to address the 33rd Governing Council of IFAD. I would like, at the outset, to congratulate Mr Kanayo Nwanze, the new President, for the excellent work he and his team have done in the first year of his mandate.

The topic which we are addressing at this session of IFAD is indeed very pertinent and relevant given the challenges which countries worldwide are facing to increase food production and hence ensure food security.

We all know that climate change, food security and small holder agriculture are all interlinked and interdependent. The small farmers whose overall contribution to national agricultural production is very significant are being severely hit by the effects of climatic change. Lower production brings around hunger and poverty. One of the objectives of the Millennium Development Goals, which is reducing hunger by half, appear to become more and more out of reach. We should, therefore, concentrate our efforts in empowering the small farmers to better address the challenges of climate change and to produce more to eradicate hunger and poverty in the medium and long term.

IFAD has an important role to play in this endeavour. I must hence place on record the excellent collaboration which has extended between the Government of Mauritius and IFAD which dates back to 1979. From that time, IFAD has funded three projects and programmes in the agricultural and fisheries sectors. A new programme called the Marine and Agricultural Resources Support Programme (MARS) is currently being implemented with the financial support of IFAD. Its objectives are to introduce new pro-poor policies and reforms to protect the more vulnerable members of society. In addition, IFAD is also supporting my Government to address complex policy dilemmas involving both environmental conservation and marine resource management as well as issues of livelihood, development and social welfare.

Mauritius is a Small Island Developing State and is particularly vulnerable to the global climate change. Unique features of island ecosystems, including fisheries, coral reefs and mangroves, also face increasing threats from climate change and natural disasters that have huge adverse implications for economic sectors such as tourism and agriculture, as well as food security and nutrition.

Climate change is recognized to impact on food security through modified agricultural productivity, especially in the light of impacts on global rises in temperature and in terms of pests, altered rainfall patterns (drought, floods) and water availability, population relocation patterns, biodiversity loss and movement of alien species (especially invasives).

Even in the fisheries sector, the impact of climate change will be felt through modified fisheries productivity and availability, as a result of primary productivity of lakes, rivers, seas and oceans as well as alerted migratory paths of fish species due to higher seawater temperatures. It would appear that tuna catch dropped by about 40% in 2007 due to higher seawater temperatures, which caused a different migratory path outside our Exclusive Economic Zone.

It is, therefore, important to urgently translate the resolutions into actions to enhance agricultural and fisheries productivity and to limit climate change effects through mitigation and adaptation strategies which will increase food security, encompassing specific resource management option that focus on water and terrestrial carbon pools.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

In the face of emerging challenges facing the agricultural and fisheries sector, Government in Mauritius decided in 2008 to invest substantially in agriculture, through the setting up of a Food Security Fund for Rs 1 Billion which is equivalent to 300 million Dollars. The objective is to reform the food sector in order to build resilience against future food crisis. A food security Strategic Plan covering period 2008 to 2011 has been prepared and is being implemented. Measures contained therein will assist in cooping with the immediate needs to increase resilience to future challenges. Substantial investments are also earmarked to improve infrastructure, training of producers, field preparation and irrigation networks.

Such investments will not only enable small producers to operate more efficiently but, more importantly, will empower them to take their destiny in their own hands at a time when competitiveness is the essence in the globalizing world. Hence, the Food Security Fund will promote the emergence of a new category of entrepreneurs.

The new IFAD Programme will complement the Government Programme for enhancing the activities of the fishermen and smallholder farmers in Mauritius and Rodrigues. Since many years, IFAD has collaborated with Mauritius to held these fishermen and smallholder farmers to come out of the poverty trap.

Furthermore, Government of Mauritius has made regional cooperation one of the mainstreams of the Food and Security Strategic Plan aiming at increasing the food security level in Mauritius. A Regional Development Company has been set up to promote regional food security and other regional development projects. The Company will act as a facilitator to acquire agricultural lands in the region, identify and motivate potential investors and to tap funding for infrastructural development. We kindly invite IFAD to participate in this initiative and provide technical assistance to assist the newly created company in its operational activities or through grant funding.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

With these words, I reiterate my thanks to IFAD for organizing this important meeting and wish that the resolutions are quickly translated into concrete actions.

I thank you for your attention.

S. V. F

17 February 2010