The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has elected Qu Dongyu — China’s vice-minister of agriculture and rural affairs — as its next director-fashionable.
Qu may be the primary head of the agency from China and will prevail Brazil’s José Graziano da Silva. His four-12 months time period will begin on 1 August.
The FAO wields extensive influence on almost every factor of meals and agriculture, together with global and neighborhood rules, and allows to shape agendas for agricultural studies. With round 11,500 employees, it is the UN’s largest technical agency and has a US$2.6-billion budget for 2018–19.
Qu has said that his priorities will consist of enhancing agriculture in tropical nations — in which poverty and starvation are rampant — and helping arid international locations to address agricultural challenges added by using water shortages.
Trained biologist
Qu, the son of a rice farmer, holds a Ph.D. in agricultural and environmental sciences from Wageningen Agricultural University within the Netherlands. He changed into a coverage researcher in agriculture and rural development on the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, and have become China’s vice-minister of agriculture and rural affairs in 2015.
He turned into elected on 23 June at some stage in a biennial assembly of the FAO Conference, the agency’s maximum governing body, and won 108 of the 191 votes in a secret poll that gave each of the FAO’s 194 member states one vote. European Union candidate Catherine Geslain-Lanéelle drew 71 votes, and Georgia’s Davit Kirvalidze, who have been subsidized with the aid of the United States, obtained 12.
Qu outlined a number of his priorities for the organization at an FAO meeting in April. He is known as for modifications in the manufacturing and intake of agricultural goods international to minimize their environmental effect. Information era and e-trade for farmers offer opportunities to spur development in impoverished rural regions, he brought.
The minister additionally said that the FAO, that’s based in Rome, should beef up its center function of collecting and disseminating global know-how, and assisting its participants with advice on policy, generation, and information. The organization additionally desires greater partnerships with the personal quarter, and outside bodies including non-governmental agencies, Qu added.
