Premier Sean Chen received a briefing on June 28 from the Council of Agriculture (COA) on the results of the Second Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Ministerial Meeting on Food Security, held late-May in Kazan, Russia.
Underlining the significance of food safety to people's well-being, the premier asked the COA, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other government agencies to continue promoting exchanges with other APEC member economies and to implement the COA's strategies for countering climate change and ensuring food safety.
Chen said Taiwan's participation in the APEC food security meeting has helped raise its international visibility and contributed substantially to ensuring food safety in Taiwan and the APEC region.
"Taiwan excels in agricultural technology," said the premier, "but we should also be mindful of protecting our plant variety rights, which will help commercialize our agricultural research results while providing greater stimulus to Taiwan's production technologies."
The COA reported that APEC representatives at the meeting drew up the Kazan Declaration on APEC Food Security, outlining strategies for strengthening regional food security and stressing the importance of cooperative partnerships between public and private sectors. The declaration also focused on such issues as increasing agricultural production and productivity; facilitating trade and developing food markets; minimizing post-harvest losses; improving food safety and quality; and attaining an APEC food system structure by 2020. Member economies will also work on improving access to food for socially vulnerable groups of populations; and ensuring sustainable ecosystems-based management while combating illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing and associated trade.
Taiwan's proposal on an APEC Food Emergency Response Mechanism (AFERM) was also incorporated into the Kazan Declaration, according to the COA. The APEC ministers expressed appreciation for Taiwan's feasibility study on the AFERM and anticipated a follow-up proposal to explore feasible approaches that would complement existing mechanisms. During the meeting, Taiwan also proposed a multi-year project for mitigating food loss through improved post-harvest processes, including the hosting of an APEC symposium on public- and private-sector cooperation for reducing food loss and lowering costs in the food supply chain. The symposium is planned for the latter half of 2013.