Minister of Agriculture and Marine Resources, Hon. Michael Pintard is leading the Bahamas delegation to the 41^st meeting of the Food & Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in Rome, Italy.

The team, comprised of Minister Pintard, Ambassador to the FAO, Her Excellency Verna Grant and National Correspondent for FAO in the Ministry of Agriculture & Marine Resources, Delreese Moss-Grant met with outgoing Director General Jose Graziano da Silva of Brazil on Sunday. The 191 member country body voted on Sunday to elect its new leader over the next three years. China’s candidate, Dr. Qu Dongyu won the electoral race. Minister Pintard is one of 107 Agriculture Ministers represented at the meeting. Director General-elect Qu met with the Bahamas delegation on Monday.  

The Bahamas was nominated to sit on the FAO Council to represent the CARICOM region for the next three years. Elections for the Council will be held on Friday June 28^th. The Bahamas is the sole nominee for the Caribbean region.

According to Minister Pintard, “meetings such as these give small countries like ours an opportunity to sit at the table with more developed nations to speak as peers, but also to gain support through technical assistance, training opportunities, attract investments, receive grants and learn best practices. We will aggressively pursue conversations that are strategic to our goal of securing the most productive links for the Bahamas at the FAO.”Further, Minister Pintard stated that ‘the priority for the Bahamian delegation was to conduct bilateral meetings with as many countries as possible in order to address crucial needs the country presently faces.”

Regional representatives have been meeting since Sunday to discuss ways to forge closer relations as well as develop exchange programs and the sharing of information that could be beneficial to all countries in the region. The Bahamas delegation has a number of bilateral meetings scheduled for the upcoming week to create links with other international organizations, private sector firms and countries.

The team was also delighted to meet up with Jeri Kelly, a Bahamian national working for the FAO in Rome. The delegation returns to the capital on Saturday, June 29th.