By Vugar Khalilov

Azerbaijan is ready to collaborate with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) under the UN to implement “smart villages” projects in its liberated Karabakh region, Minister of Agriculture Inam Karimov has said.

Addressing the 42nd Session of the FAO conference on June 16, Karimov said that after the de-occupation of its Armenian-held territories, Azerbaijan announced the Karabakh region a green energy zone.

He stressed that agriculture in these territories will be developed in line with the “smart village” concept, which envisages the use of the best technologies and experiences.

This matches the FAO’s digitalization program of villages and therefore Azerbaijan is ready for a close partnership with FAO in this sphere, Karimov said, adding that as a member of different strategic initiatives, Azerbaijan supports all kinds of effective collaboration on a global scale.  

Moreover, Karimov mentioned that Azerbaijan, together with its partners, actively contributes to the global fight against COVID-19. The Azerbaijani government takes all the necessary measures to minimize the impact of the pandemic on the agrarian sector and farmers and these measures have resulted in 2% increase in the country’s agrarian sector in 2020.

Held in an online format, the 42nd Session of the FAO conference brought together over 1,300 participants, including 119 ministers and deputy ministers. The opening session saw a record-breaking number of participants from around the world.

FAO Director-General, Qu Dongyu, set the scene for the week-long conference summarizing the main global challenges.

The climate change, increase of food productivity, qualitative food production, development of the agricultural systems were among the main topics of discussion during the conference.