Monday 23 January 2017

G20 agriculture ministers meet

The G20 agriculture ministers met in Berlin yesterday with the aim to produce concrete recommendations for action to “provide essential building blocks in order to secure the world’s food supply," according to Germany’s Minister of Food and Agriculture, Christian Schmidt.

The G20 agriculture ministers’ summit is the first ministerial meeting of Germany’s G20 presidency which started in December 2016 with Minister Schmidt emphasising the importance of agriculture.

"Without agriculture, issues of global stability such as sustainable food security cannot be solved. This is why we need to strengthen sustainable agriculture and rural areas around the world, and this is what I will strive towards under the G20 presidency", declared Schmidt.

During the summit, Minister Schmidt met with his Russian counterpart Alexander Tkachev to discuss trade restrictions caused by the sanctions policy.

The Russian food embargo is set to expire at the end of 2017 but now the US have a new President who has been pretty unambiguous about his views on Russia may mean we see trade relations returning to normal before then.

The G20 states represent 60 per cent of the world’s agricultural land.