Minister of Agriculture Elsayed Elkosayer has met Nasredin Hag Elamin, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Representative in Egypt, to discuss prospects for cooperation between the Ministry and the FAO and follow up on previously agreed projects. During the meeting, Elkosayer highlighted the importance of the FAO's action plan during the coming period matching requirements of the Egyptian state with the aim of achieving food security and raising the standard of living of small farmers, especially in remote rural areas. Elkosayer noted that the Ministry of Agriculture will participate with the FAO in providing technical support and experts to spread correct agricultural awareness and apply modern and advanced systems in agriculture. For his part, Elamin stated that the organization is keen to ensure that the projects that are being developed are in line with and achieve sustainable development plans in Egypt. Elamin said that prior coordination with the ministry is of great importance in achieving this goal, added that there is a project that will be funded through the European Union in cooperation with the UN World Food Programme in other agricultural activities, including biodiversity and others. Coordination will be made with the Ministry during the coming period to implement it. He pointed out that the FAO is in the process of implementing the project submitted by the Canadian government in the field of smart agriculture in the governorates of Kafr El-Sheikh, Beheira, and Aswan within the framework of the Decent Life Initiative. The minister disclosed that choosing villages to join the Decent Life initiative comes in the first place, and then secondly defining strategic crops that will be committed to cultivating them, provided that the FAO organization provides financial support to farmers in those villages by providing production requirements. Besides, providing technical support to people of these villages to focus on the cultivation of wheat, corn and soybeans as strategic crops, in addition to applying modern irrigation systems with these crops to become indicative models that can be replicated in other regions in other governorates. The projects that have been agreed upon are supporting farmers to expand the approved seeds, as well as making models and indicative fields for cultivating reeds by seedlings and modern irrigation, according to the minister. At the end of the meeting, it was agreed to form a technical secretariat between ministries of Agriculture, International Cooperation and FAO to develop mechanisms for implementing the FAST initiative launched by the Ministry of Agriculture during the COP27 last November in Sharm El-Sheikh.
