2021 Communiqué of the G20 Agriculture Ministers

1. We, the G20 Agriculture Ministers met in Florence on September 17-18, 2021 and reiterated our commitment to achieve food security and nutrition for all, and to ensure sustainable and resilient food systems, leaving no one behind.

2. Over the last decades, global agriculture and food systems have delivered a substantial increase in food production to feed a growing population and have improved food availability and access despite the continued exposure to a wide variety of risks. Nonetheless, six years since the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, a quarter of the world population still experiences food insecurity and the world is off-track to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 2 (SDG 2) Zero Hunger. This situation has been exacerbated by disruptions related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

3. We recognize that sustainable and resilient food systems are fundamental for food security and nutrition, contributing to healthy and balanced diets, poverty eradication, sustainable management of natural resources, conservation and protection of ecosystems and climate change mitigation and adaptation. In this context, we welcome the recently endorsed Committee on World Food Security (CFS) Voluntary Guidelines on Food Systems and Nutrition and encourage all stakeholders to actively contribute to promoting their use and application.

4. Emphasizing the commitments to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement, we will continue to work to promote sustainable and resilient food systems that create benefits for people, planet, and prosperity and take urgent actions to address the causes and impacts of climate change and conserve, protect and restore biodiversity and ecosystems.

5. We are committed to working together to identify and overcome the major hurdles to meeting the SDGs and to inform our policies. We acknowledge and appreciate the ongoing activities of FAO and other relevant international organizations and bodies supporting our actions by reporting progress towards the SDGs and providing science and evidence-based policy recommendations.

6. We recognize the need to identify paths for sustainable and resilient food systems and to find appropriate institutional, collaborative, and financial frameworks for their implementation, to overcome short and long-term challenges. Considering that there is no one-size-fits-all solution, we stress the urgency of factoring in different local conditions, cultures, histories, production systems, consumption patterns and traditions while designing sustainable, productive and resilient food systems transformation. The continued transition to sustainable food systems is a process that requires contributions by all stakeholders, and a continuous and inclusive dialogue. To this end, we will continue to work for sustainable and responsible agricultural supply chains.

7. We recognize that there is no sustainable growth without economically viable agriculture that generates a stable and rewarding income and creates decent work and quality jobs and opportunities for farmers and agricultural workers, their families, and the rural communities. We acknowledge the importance of the prosperity of rural areas and the role of family farmers and smallholders in contributing to sustainable growth and the need to improve employment and business opportunities, and decent living and working conditions to make agriculture more attractive to women and youth. Such an inclusive rural transformation and revitalization would address the plight of at least 75% of the world's poor who live in rural areas, and advance their equitable access to healthy diets. This goal requires easier access to education, capital, technologies and markets, public-private partnerships, and responsible investments in rural areas and rural infrastructures. We reaffirm, in line with "CFS - Principles for Responsible Investment in Agriculture and Food Systems", the importance of promoting responsible investments in agriculture and food systems, especially to family farmers, startups and small- and medium-sized enterprises engaging innovative technologies that can support the transition towards sustainable and resilient food systems.

8. The social sustainability of food systems calls for more attention to the contribution of agricultural workers and communities, including seasonal migrant workers, to sustainable development and to ensure they equitably share the gains from this development through adequate earnings from their work. We will foster a policy environment that enables equitable, decent, and safe employment in agri-food value chains. We pledge to continue the dialogue on sustainable food systems and discuss ideas for adapting institutions to address new challenges.

Recognizing the interaction of agriculture with climate, biodiversity, and natural resources, our actions should consider the economic and social impacts of transforming food systems, whilst ensuring a transition to sustainable models, leaving no one behind.

We emphasize the importance of ensuring a holistic approach to this issue, jointly considering environmental degradation, economic opportunities, and social impacts. To achieve this goal and ensure social inclusion, age and gender equity and equality, youth, women, Indigenous peoples, and local communities must play a key role as part of the decision-making processes and solutions, including through a people-centered approach.

9. We acknowledge that food loss and waste (FLW) is a global challenge and it requires urgent and collective actions. We renew our commitment to halve per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and reduce food losses along production and supply chains, including post-harvest losses by 2030. Therefore, we welcome the efforts of the Technical Platform on the Measurement and Reduction of Food Loss and Waste and any other relevant regional and national initiatives and conferences to tackle this issue.

10. The COVID-19 pandemic and other emerging infectious diseases, and zoonoses as well as the continuing challenge of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), remind us of the close connections between human, animal, plant and environmental health. Based on the international OIE and Codex Alimentarius standards we stress the fundamental importance of applying a holistic multi-sectoral approach and reaffirm our commitment to implement the One Health approach to accelerate the global fight against AMR in agriculture and food systems and to prevent, reduce and manage biological threats and risks to agriculture and food security. We recognize and encourage the work of the Tripartite Plus organizations (OIE, FAO, WHO and UNEP) to strengthen the implementation of the One Health approach to combat AMR, emerging zoonotic diseases with pandemic potential and other threats to global health security, and welcome the One Health High-Level Expert Panel established by FAO, OIE, UNEP and WHO. Likewise, we renew our commitment to ensuring food safety across food systems. We welcome the continued work of the International Organizations in enhancing the capacities of countries to combat AMR.

11. We will promote research and innovation to increase the resilience and sustainability of agricultural and food systems and to mitigate and adapt to climate change and halt and reverse biodiversity loss, and enhance plant and animal resistance to diseases, pests and abiotic stresses. We recall the vital role of characterization, in-situ and ex-situ conservation and evaluation of animal and plant genetic resources for food and agriculture and their exchange and availability for breeding, diversification of agriculture and research in accordance with internationally agreed frameworks, as applicable. We recognize that research is strengthened through shared principles of openness, transparency, reciprocity and excellence. We will work to enhance research collaboration and to improve the interface between science and policy.

12. We will support capacity development, training and extension services for local producers, small-scale producers and family farmers to address key aspects of food systems sustainability.We underline the importance of digital transformation in agriculture, fostering innovation while protecting data privacy, data security and the intellectual property rights and investment in research and development (R&D), and knowledge transfer to farmers. We recognize that innovative technologies practices and approaches can play an important role in increasing productivity in a sustainable manner, optimizing the use of inputs, helping countries to produce food under climate change effects. We will strengthen our cooperation by working together to promote the resilience, productivity and sustainability of the food and agricultural sector, including leveraging key opportunities this year at COP 26, United Nations Food Systems Summit (UNFSS) and other fora.

13. We will promote farming practices and technologies that are both productive and sustainable, science and evidence-based and data driven, informed by local context and circumstance, conserve natural resources, soil health and water, enable sustainable management of land, halt and reverse biodiversity loss, and contribute to climate change mitigation and adaptation.

14. Climate change, extreme weather events, animal and plant pests and diseases, and shocks such as the COVID-19 pandemic, threaten food systems across the world, can cause food shortages and exacerbate price volatility, and require coordinated and effective responses. We will guard against any unjustified restrictive measures that could lead to extreme food price volatility in international markets and threaten food security and nutrition.

15. We recognize that international agri-food trade is critical for global food security and nutrition. We highlight the importance of an open, transparent, predictable, and non- discriminatory multilateral trading system consistent with World Trade Organization (WTO) rules, to enhance market predictability, increase business confidence, and allow agri-food trade to flow so as to contribute to food security and nutrition.

We welcome the WTO Members' constructive efforts to make progress at the Twelfth WTO Ministerial Conference (MC12).

16. We acknowledge and welcome the important contributions of the Agriculture Market Information System (AMIS) initiative, and the Group on Earth Observations Global Agricultural Monitoring (GEOGLAM) to enhancing food market transparency and supporting coordinated policy responses for food security, and nutrition, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. To ensure the continuation of AMIS's work in reducing global food market uncertainties, we commit to providing timely data and voluntary resources to sustain the initiative. We recognize the contributions of the Platform for Agricultural Risk Management (PARM) to improve resilience of the agricultural sector through a better management of risks and we appreciate the results of the Tropical Agriculture Platform (TAP) and the Wheat Initiative as it comes into its 10th anniversary.

We thank FAO and OECD for the Summary Report on resilience and risk management collecting G20 Countries' experiences on the challenges faced during the COVID-19 pandemic and their respective responses.

17. We appreciate the outcomes of the 10th G20 Meeting of Agricultural Chief Scientists (MACS) on the role of science, technology and innovation in sustainable, and resilient food systems to improve food safety and food security. We encourage research cooperation to improve the use and application of digital traceability along the food chain and to reinforce science and evidence-based understanding and knowledge of genome editing in agriculture, its potential benefits and risks, its potential use for sustainable development and to inform policy making processes and regulatory systems. We encourage greater focus on and increased investments in agriculture R&D and innovation for climate action. We welcome the two workshops, proposed by the Italian G20 Presidency, on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) and on Climate Change, which were held at the initiative of the Italian G20 Presidency on September 1st and 2nd.

18. We welcome the G20 Open Forum on Sustainable Agriculture under the Italian G20 Presidency. This is a step forward in promoting the wider adoption of proven, sustainable agricultural practices in rural areas for sustainable management of natural resources.

19. Despite global efforts, hunger is rising and the multi-faceted impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic are increasing food insecurity and malnutrition. We wish to enhance cooperation between G20 members and developing countries in food and agriculture to build forward better, share knowledge and help to develop domestic production capacities better suited to local needs, and contribute to the resilience and recovery of agriculture and rural communities. In this context, we welcome the G20 Matera Declaration on Food Security and Nutrition and acknowledge the opportunity to work together, on a voluntary basis, through inter alia, the Food Coalition, a global alliance led by FAO, to initiate coordinated action in response to COVID-19, and the G20 Peer to Peer projects, a voluntary collaboration mechanism between Ministries of Agriculture and other stakeholders, to share knowledge and best practices for sustainable agricultural systems.

20. We welcome the United Nations Food Systems Summit taking place in September 2021. We acknowledge that now, more than ever, we need decisive, inclusive, sustained and coordinated action to ensure that our food systems can step up to address the shared challenges we face. Our work is mutually reinforcing with the Summit's efforts to promote bold actions in sustainable agriculture and food systems to ensure measurable progress towards the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. We actively support the workstreams for the Summit, and call on all stakeholders to contribute to its process, in order to achieve balanced and objective outcomes that both recognize the diversity of food production systems and that contribute to build sustainable food systems.

21. We thank the Italian Presidency for their leadership and excellent work. We look forward to the Indonesian G20 Presidency in 2022.

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This page was last updated August 15, 2024 .

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