Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- From 5 to 6 July, meetings were held in Tashkent within the framework of the VII Meeting of Ministers of Agriculture of the member states of the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO). The organizer of events in Tashkent is the Ministry of Agriculture of the Republic of Uzbekistan.

On 5 July, on the eve of the VII Meeting of the Ministers of Agriculture of the ECO Member States, a meeting of a working group of experts from the Ministries of Agriculture of the ECO Member States was held.

The main topic of the meeting of the working group is food security and the creation of favorable conditions for facilitating trade between the ECO member countries. Particular attention was paid to the development of the seed sector, since this particular area of agriculture is directly related to food security.

On 6 July, Tashkent hosted the 7th meeting of the Ministers of Agriculture of the ECO member countries. During the meeting, an analysis was made of the current state of cooperation in the field of agriculture and the identification of new promising areas, as well as a discussion of the draft Declaration on Agriculture of the ECO countries.

The meeting was attended by the ministers of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Uzbekistan, director of the National Center for Agriculture of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, Ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the Republic of Uzbekistan.

The chairing party, represented by the Minister of Agriculture of the Republic of Uzbekistan Jamshid Khodjaev, put forward a number of initiatives for the strategic partnership of the ECO countries in cooperation with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO):

- Support for housekeeping and gardening.

- Development of agricultural cooperatives in Uzbekistan together with the ECO countries.

- Close interaction of the ECO countries in personnel matters.

- Activation of cooperation in the field of organic production in agriculture.

- Creation of better conditions for seed trade, implementation of joint projects with the active involvement of specialists in this field.

- Digitalization of agriculture.

- Development of agritourism between ECO countries.

- Strengthening cooperation in food security.

“Uzbekistan highly appreciates the rapidly developing relations with the countries of the Economic Cooperation Organization. The ECO countries are the oldest centers for the development of agriculture and animal husbandry. We are firmly convinced that it is extremely important for us to continue intensifying mutual trade, optimize its structure, and find new growth points. We also consider it important to develop new trading formats. 

Some global factors such as climate change, population growth, environmental degradation hinder the development of agriculture.

In this regard, we consider it necessary to develop a Strategy for cooperation in the field of food security of the ECO together with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO),” said the Minister of Agriculture of the Republic of Uzbekistan Jamshid Khodjaev.