World meat industry news

The Armenian agriculture ministry and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) will sign a new agreement to expand their cooperation, Iganti Araqelyan, Armenian agriculture minister, told journalists on Wednesday.

"Armenia became a member of FAO in 1993 and a huge job has been done since then," he said. "The agreement will make it possible to speed up investments under programs and implement large-scale projects with the FAO support."

According to ARKA News Agency, the minister pointed out cattle breeding, veterinary and food safety as to-priority grounds for cooperation.

"Already now we are implementing important programs with FAO to preserve our genetic resources," he said. "In particular, this is a program of creation and preservation of the genetic resource of apricots and grapes."

Vladimir Rakhmanin, deputy CEO and regional envoy of FAO for Europe and Central Asia, on his side, stressed that over 24 years of their cooperation Armenia and FAO could achieve more and that the new agreement will lay groundwork for strengthening this cooperation.

Expressing gratitude to the Armenian agriculture ministry for effective cooperation, Mr Rakhmanin said that the organization and the ministry have made arrangement to cooperate until 2020, since the world faces new global challenges, which indirectly apply to our country as well.

These challenges are, first of all, cross-border diseases of plants and animals, which are strengthening because of climate changes, attitude toward farmers and urbanization of the society, he said.