UN food and agriculture agency honours Turkish Prime Minister

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has conferred its highest award, the Agricola Medal, on Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan for his contribution to agricultural and social development in Turkey.

At a ceremony held yesterday in Ankara at FAO’s newly inaugurated Subregional Office for Central Asia, FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf presented the Prime Minister with the award which is “for all your admirable efforts on behalf of your country’s agriculture and food security.”

Under Prime Minister Erdogan, Turkey has launched a major agricultural reform project aiming to provide direct incentives to farmers to significantly increase production and exports and raise rural incomes and food security, FAO said in a news release.

Mr. Diouf noted that Turkey is one of the few emerging countries directly participating in food aid operations, to which it has donated millions of dollars through the UN World Food Programme (WFP) over the past few years.

Previous recipients of the Agricola Medal include King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand, French President Jacques Chirac, Chinese President Jiang Zemin, Pope John Paul II, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar, and President Johannes Rau of Germany.

While in Turkey, Mr. Diouf also took part in an international conference on making globalization work for the least developed countries (LDCs). The three-day meeting in Istanbul, attended by more than 20 ministers from LDCs, senior UN figures, academics and experts, discussed the challenges and opportunities presented by globalization to the world’s poorest nations.