It's a first. China's Deputy Minister of Agriculture Qu Dongyyu was elected Sunday at the head of the UN's Agriculture and Food Agency, FAO, in Rome, earning an absolute majority from the first ballot, found AFP.
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Qu Dongyu, the first Chinese to hold the position, won 108 votes, the French candidate Catherine Geslain-Lanéelle, 71 votes, and the Georgian candidate Davit Kirvalidze, 12 votes, according to the count announced after the first round of voting. "This is a historic date, a new springboard" for agriculture and food in the world, immediately reacted the new elected, who promised to "do everything to be impartial and neutral". He also promised to be "in the concrete" to fight hunger in the world.
FAO had begun a shift towards agro-ecological methods
The delegates, who voted by secret ballot, had a choice of three candidates in total, after the withdrawal of the race of a Cameroonian and an Indian in recent weeks: Qu Dongyu, Deputy Minister of Agriculture in China, Davit Kirvalidze, a former farmer and former Minister of Agriculture of Georgia, and Catherine Geslain-Lanéelle, former head of the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA). The future leader, whose term of office will be four years, from 1 August 2019 to 31 July 2023, will succeed José Graziano da Silva of Brazil, who has held two terms as head of the multilateral institution.
Under the leadership of José Graziano da Silva, FAO has begun a shift towards agro-ecological methods. Call on nature to both combat the effects of global warming and increase agricultural yields, while limiting the synthetic pesticides that support the giants of agro-chemistry.