Brussels, 28/09/2012 (Agence Europe) - France wants greater cooperation on farm and food issues around the Mediterranean, based on the type of mechanisms introduced by the G20, explained French farm minister Stephane Le Foll in Malta on Thursday 27 September.
Le Foll was attending the ninth meeting of agriculture ministers from around the Mediterranean to prepare for the upcoming Food and Agriculture Organisation (a UN body) summit in Rome on 16 October, explained a French ministerial press release.
The press release explained that Le Foll encouraged greater coordination around the Mediterranean along the line of tools set up under the G20 for agriculture, like the Agricultural Markets Information System (AMIS), set up by the G20 summit of the world's top twenty economies in Cannes, France, in June 2011 to ensure greater visibility on crop markets important for world food security (wheat, maize and rice). The theme of the Malta meeting was food security and price volatility in Mediterranean countries, against a backdrop of a general hike in food commodity prices around the world, and the fact that the Mediterranean has to import more food than any other region of the world, according to Le Foll. The Malta meeting provided Le Foll with an opportunity to hold a number of one-on-one meetings with France's regular partners, Algeria and Morocco, for example, which purchase a lot of wheat, along with Turkey. The Turkish meeting was particularly significant for French farmers because in 2011, Turkey resumed cattle imports after fifteen years of embargo officially due to fears about the mad cow disease epidemic in Europe (BSE, bovine spongiform encephalopathy). Le Foll called for simplification of import/export procedures for Turkey. Turkey is a huge potential market and French cattle exports to the country this year have already reached €164 million. (LC/transl.fl)