For Whom Do the FAO and Its Director-General Work?

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by Rahul Goswami
 
For farmers small and large?  For the tens of millions of food-consuming households, poor or just getting by?  For the governments and bureaucracies of small countries who want to import less and grow more?  For the organic cultivators on their small densely bio-diverse plots?  Or for the world's large food production, trading, and retail corporations, whose influence is wide and whose power is vast?

There is the continuing if travel-stained hope -- held by so many of us, those who work at humble stations in the food and agriculture sector -- that, of all those whom the director-general of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO of the United Nations) does work for, it is not that last.  But, since 2011 June, when José Graziano da Silva became the head of the FAO, the signs have been otherwise, and they are growing stronger with each passing month...

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UN's FAO spent $1.1 Million to study shared stock of shrimp and groundfish in Guianas

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The Food and  Agriculture Organ-isation (FAO) of the United Nations has facilitated a case study on the shared stocks of shrimps and groundfish in the Guianas-Brazil Shelf under the Caribbean Large Marine Ecosystem (CLME) Project.

In a release, the FAO said the overall objective of the project is to improve management practices of the shrimp and groundfish fishery at the national and sub-regional levels, to ensure that maximum benefits can be gained from these resources and to improve livelihoods of those directly and indirectly dependent on these fisheries. The project commenced in July 2011, and is expected to be completed in November 2012.

Guyana, Brazil, French Guiana, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago are involved in the study, whereby each country is expected to prepare a Baseline Report on the current situation with respect to their shrimp and groundfish fishery. A draft report was prepared for Guyana and several priority issues and suggested actions were identified. The report is expected to be validated by stakeholders.

To this end, the FAO, in collaboration with the Fisheries Department of the Agriculture Ministry, will be convening a National Stakeholder Consultation workshop. The workshop will be held on Tuesday, September 18, at the Regency Suites Hotel, Hadfield Street.