Italy offers to host UN food systems summit in 2021

Italy wants to host a planned United Nations summit on food systems in 2021, Premier Giuseppe Conte said on Wednesday in a keynote speech at the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation's headquarters here.

"I am extremely proud to confirm today that Italy would be honoured to host this important summit," Conte said in the address to mark World Food Day.

"The summit provides a unique opportunity for governments and international organisations to achieve the joint objectives of Agenda 2030," he said, referring to an ambitious set of UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Italy's presidency of the G20 in 2012 will offer "an extraordinary opportunity food security and food quality at the centre of the international agenda," Conte underlined.

"The history of food and agriculture" began in Italy back in 1905 when the first international agriculture institute was founded in Rome, while the FAO was transferred there from Washington CD in 1951, Conte noted.