Merrigan representing U.S. at FAO conference
June 24, 2011 | 10:00 AM
By JERRY HAGSTROM
Agriculture Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan is scheduled to represent the United States at the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization election and biennial conference beginning Saturday in Rome.
The conference will feature the election of the first new director general of the FAO in 18 years. The six candidates who are vying to replace Jacques Diouf, a Senegalese, are scheduled to give campaign speeches on Saturday and the election is scheduled on Sunday.
The six candidates are Franz Fischler of Austraia, José Graziano da Silva of Brazil, Indroyono Soesilo of Indonesia, Mohammad Saeid Noori Naeini of Iran, Abdul Latif Rashid of Iraq, and Miguel Ángel Moratinos Cuyaubé of Spain.
Brazil has been considered the most likely to win the director general’s job because no South American has held the post, but FAO elections are hard to predict.
Former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan will deliver the McDougall memorial lecture, addressing global food and nutrition security issues. Annan now chairs AGRA, an African agriculture development group funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation.
During the conference, the FAO is expected to declare that the world is free from the deadly cattle disease rinderpest.
More than 100 agriculture ministers or their representatives are expected to attend the conference.
Agriculture Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan is scheduled to represent the United States at the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization election and biennial conference beginning Saturday in Rome.
The conference will feature the election of the first new director general of the FAO in 18 years. The six candidates who are vying to replace Jacques Diouf, a Senegalese, are scheduled to give campaign speeches on Saturday and the election is scheduled on Sunday.
The six candidates are Franz Fischler of Austraia, José Graziano da Silva of Brazil, Indroyono Soesilo of Indonesia, Mohammad Saeid Noori Naeini of Iran, Abdul Latif Rashid of Iraq, and Miguel Ángel Moratinos Cuyaubé of Spain.
Brazil has been considered the most likely to win the director general’s job because no South American has held the post, but FAO elections are hard to predict.
Former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan will deliver the McDougall memorial lecture, addressing global food and nutrition security issues. Annan now chairs AGRA, an African agriculture development group funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation.
During the conference, the FAO is expected to declare that the world is free from the deadly cattle disease rinderpest.
More than 100 agriculture ministers or their representatives are expected to attend the conference.
