Paris, 25 February 2010 – With billions more people to feed, world food production will have to rise by nearly 50 % in the next 20 years. The farming sector will also be faced with diminishing land and water resources and the impact of climate change.

Facing such critical issues, on 25-26 February 2010, Agriculture Ministers from OECD and several non-OECD countries will meet in Paris in the OECD’s first Agriculture Ministerial Meeting since 1998.

Focusing on “Food and Agricultural Policies for a Sustainable Future: Responding to Global Challenges and Opportunities”, the OECD meeting will add to the increased political pressure for addressing food and agricultural issues, which has been demonstrated by the G20 Leaders’ Statement at the Pittsburgh Summit in September 2009, and the FAO World Food Summit in November 2009.

In advance of the Ministerial, on 25 February, the OECD Business community consulted with the co-chairs of the OECD Agriculture Ministerial, Mr. Nikolaus Belakovich (Federal Minister for Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management, Austria) and Mr. David Carter (Minister of Agriculture, Minister for Biosecurity and Minister of Forestry, New Zealand).

Led by BIAC Food and Agriculture Committee Chair Niels Nordgaard, business highlighted four overarching priorities for Ministers:

• Consider challenges in the food and agriculture sector in a broader perspective, taking into account interactions between different sectors and global challenges, and thus ensuring policy coherence as much as possible.
• Consult and work together with the business community and other stakeholders, in order to inform debates and develop sustainable and broadly-supported policies.
• Strongly consider how to implement food and agriculture policies, thus going beyond simply updating the 1998 OECD Agriculture Ministerial policy principles and shared goals.
• Call upon the OECD to carry out new forward-looking activities that benefit from the Organisation’s added value vis-à-vis other international governmental organisations, drawing upon its interdisciplinary evidence-based policy analysis and its relations with its formal advisory bodies (BIAC and TUAC) and other stakeholders.

As background material for the consultation, BIAC submitted a discussion paper for Ministers, which is available here.

Further information about the OECD Ministerial is available at www.oecd.org/agriculture/ministerial.

BIAC will continue to develop its positions with Member and Observer input to provide well-targeted and timely input to OECD work. If you would like to get involved, please contact Jonathan Greenhill at the BIAC Secretariat.