| Press Statement Philip T. Reeker, Deputy Spokesman Washington, DC June 14, 2002 The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Summit In Rome, June 10 to 13The World Food Summit ended yesterday in Rome. Led by Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman, USAID Administrator Andrew Natsios and Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs Alan Larson, the United States stressed the importance of boosting agricultural productivity, liberalizing agricultural trade and maintaining science-based trade standards; agricultural research and technology, including biotechnology; and good governance and sound economic policies for sustainable development. The United States strongly supports a number of key elements of the declaration produced at the summit. The document highlights the key factors in the Administration’s dedication to alleviate hunger and poverty, and will be a tool in implementing the goal of the original 1996 Food Summit, to cut hunger in half by 2015. The United States made a reservation concerning the document’s call for the elaboration of voluntary guidelines to support countries’ efforts to achieve the progressive realization of the right to adequate food. The U.S. has long been the world’s leader in efforts to assure that all the world’s peoples have access to food. We currently provide nearly two-thirds of the World Food Program’s budget to feed the world’s neediest and most at risk. |
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