After a high-level meeting last week, we, representatives of civil society & Indigenous Peoples organizations, urgently call on the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to end its existing agreement with CropLife International (CLI), to publicly clarify the nature of its ties with the pesticide industry, and to subject these ties to greater transparency and accountability.
On July 25, representatives from PAN, FIAN, IITC and IPEN met with FAO Deputy Director General Beth Bechdol and her colleagues in the Project Support, Partnerships, and Plant Protection divisions. This meeting was held more than a year and a half after we - 11 civil society and Indigenous Peoples organizations - first made a formal request to sit down with the Director-General upon signing the Letter of Intent (LOI) between FAO and CropLife in October 2020. Our high-level meeting requests continued through the most recent June FAO Council meeting, amplified by the massive public opposition from hundreds of CSO & IP groups representing farmers, agricultural workers, and other communities, academics, scientists and funders from around the world, plus the over 187,300 people from over 107 countries that have petitioned the FAO to end this alliance with the pesticide industry.
