NZ joint chair of OECD agriculture meeting

Agriculture Minister David Carter will join his Austrian counterpart Nikolaus Berlakovich as co-chair of the OECD Agriculture Ministers’ meeting in Paris this week.
Ministers and senior officials from around 30 countries are attending the two-day meeting, the first at this level since 1998.
“Global population growth means that world food production will need to rise by 50 percent in the next 20 years. This presents major challenges for all countries involved in the business of growing food,” says Mr Carter.
“This meeting is a significant opportunity to discuss ways of confronting food security with new thinking, new approaches and a strong political will.”
Mr Carter will also attend the 25th Round Table on Sustainable Development and hold bilateral meetings with several of his European counterparts.
This will enable further discussion on the Global Research Alliance, which now has 23 member countries on board.
“The agriculture sector is particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, so the importance of the commitment shown by these countries to reducing agriculture greenhouse gas emissions, while enhancing food security, cannot be underestimated,” says Mr Carter.