Union Agriculture Minister will be Participating in FAO Conference

NEW DELHI: Union Agriculture Minister, Radha Mohan Singh will visit Rome, Italy today to participate in 39^th session of Conference of Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations. Singh will participate in Conference on 7- 8 June, 2015 and will return on 9^th June, 2015. The agenda of the Conference is as follows:

The Constitution of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations provides for “a Conference of the organisation in which each member nation and associate member shall be represented by one delegate”. The Conference is the Sovereign Governing Body of the Organisation.  At present FAO has 194 member nations plus1 member organisation, the European Union and two associate members – the Faroe Islands and Tokelau.

The main function of the Conference is to determine the policy and approve the budget of the organisation and to exercise other powers conferred upon it by the Constitution, namely;

(a)       To make recommendations to the member nations and associate members regarding review of issues pertaining to food and agriculture for their implementation through national action;

(b)       To make recommendations to any international organisation regarding any matter pertaining to the purposes of the organisation.

The Conference functions through Plenary and two Commissions –

(i)       Commission I – Deals with the regional conferences, technical committees and Committee on World Food Security (CFS) and other substantive and policy matters.

(i)        Commission II – Deals with programme and  budgetary matters.

SS/Rome