G7 Agriculture Ministers’ Meeting

I want to thank Minister Nomura, the Japanese G7 Presidency, and the people of Miyazaki for their warm hospitality and excellent arrangements.

With more than 8 billion people on our planet and climate change affecting agriculture and food security everywhere, we, the international community need urgently and collectively to increase our investment in sustainable, inclusive and resilient agri-food systems at a speed and scale never seen before.

I call on the continued leadership of the G7 to reduce the current alarming rates of food and nutrition insecurity.

As the President of Somalia mentioned to me in a recent bilateral meeting, food security is national security.

Current food and agriculture policies, and business as usual approaches, will not deliver the food and nutrition security needed for a growing population. Neither they will address climate change, sustain the environment, protect biodiversity, or enable equitable livelihoods.

New and innovative partnerships are needed, as Minister Solskyi from Ukraine also highlighted yesterday.

Breaking the cycle of food crisis requires long term investments in local and regional production as well as in trade.

IFAD was created in the early 1970’s to address a then global food and energy crisis with medium- and long-term investments in those who are most likely to be left behind: small-scale producers and vulnerable rural people in developing countries.

As one of the three U.N. food Rome based agencies, IFAD’s investments complement FAO’s normative and analytical work and WFP’s emergency and humanitarian support.

As an assembler of development finance, we work with governments, development partners, small-scale producers and the private sector to forge strategic partnerships to build sustainable, inclusive and resilient food systems. IFAD focuses on strengthening local production and 90% of our climate finance goes to support small scale farmers in climate adaptation activities.

Ensuring farmers access to finance is critical for global food security. IFAD leads a coalition of public development banks on agriculture and a number of innovative blended finance platforms to address the needs of micro, small and medium enterprises. For example, the Agri-Business Capital Fund, launched in collaboration with the European Commission.

IFAD welcomes Japan’s G7 Presidency Initiative to catalyse private sector engagement and investment in small-scale agriculture and food systems.

Over our 46 years history, we have been building long term public-private-producer partnerships. These are effective partnerships between a governments, business agents and small-scale producers agree to work together towards a common goal while jointly assuming risks and responsibilities, and sharing benefits, resources and competencies. We have done much, and together we can do much more.

If we are serious about achieving SDG2 and the Agenda 2030, then it is crucial to increase our investments in the productivity, incomes and livelihoods of small-scale producers, especially by linking them to remunerative, transparent and fair markets.

Japan’s G7 Presidency Initiative will help address an important challenge by connecting local producers and markets.

Every euro or US dollar invested now to build rural resilience and improving small-scale farmers’ livelihoods can save up to 10 euros or US$ in emergency aid down the road.

This is a sound investment in our collective future and good use of tax payer’s money.

This year IFAD is engaging with its 178-member countries, -with Ukraine as our latest member- to recapitalize the fund. The 13^th Replenishment of IFAD offers the international community a global platform to invest in food security and in sustainable, inclusive and resilient food systems in developing countries, with focus on the poorest people and countries.

Our partnership with you, the G7, is crucial to realize our common goals to transform food systems so they can work for all. We count on your support.

Thank you.