Media brief on participation of the honourable Minister for Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Mr Senzeni Zokwana (MP) in the International Symposium on Agricultural Innovation for Family Farmers: unlocking the potential of agricultural innovation to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, Rome 21 to 23 November 2018
The Minister for Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries is participating in the International Symposium on Agricultural Innovation for Family Farmers: Unlocking the potential of agricultural innovation to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. The Symposium is hosted by the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation in Rome, Italy, from 21 to 23 November 2018.
The symposium aims to increase understanding of the innovation drivers and processes, which is critical to unlocking the potential of innovation to achieve the transformative change required in agriculture and rural development.
Collective actions are required to remove barriers and address the constraints (technological, social, organizational, policy, etc.) that stifle the capacity of family farmers and other stakeholders in agriculture and food systems, to innovate.
The objectives of the Symposium are to:
- Serve as a global knowledge and partnership platform to better understand the potential of innovation in agriculture to address the SDGs, with a special focus on supporting smallholder and family farmers;
- Increase understanding of the drivers of innovation and the main constraints;
- Propose processes, pathways and interventions needed to unlock the potential of innovation in agriculture and scaling up inclusive innovations;
- Celebrate inspiring success stories of innovation and innovators in sustainable agriculture;
- Act as a catalyst for boosting partnerships as well as public and private investments to foster and scale up agricultural innovation.
The expected outputs are:
- Support for a Call of Action to unlock the potential of agricultural innovation for family farmers to achieve the SDGs;
- Identification of priority intervention areas where key stakeholders, including FAO, can support countries to unlock the potential of agricultural innovation to achieve the SDGs;
- Identification of potential actions and strategies for scaling up successful innovations to meet the needs of millions of family farmers;
- Electronic proceedings of the symposium with key recommendations for action.
The Minister will participate as a Panellist under Segment II which discusses “Empowerment for innovation” on 22 November 2018 at between 09:45 – 12:30. The session on day two of the Symposium wherein the Minister will be a Panellists is under Parallel 3 which addresses “Building effective agricultural innovation systems and empowering its actors” under Panel 1 of Building effective agriculture innovation systems. The rationale for the Minister’s participation is to highlight the need for partnerships in promoting Agricultural Innovation Systems that are beneficial to both the African Region and World.
Media is invited to partake in the discussions that will be on webcast between 09:45 and 12:30.
Enquiries:
Khaye Nkwanyana
E-mail: MLO.Minister@daff.gov.za
Cell: 083 952 9723
