Permanent Secretary for Agriculture, Ritesh Dass while addressing the forum [Source: DINFO]

Fiji has commenced a series of national dialogues on food systems ahead of the United Nations Food Systems Summit taking place in September this year.

While addressing the forum, Permanent Secretary for Agriculture, Ritesh Dass says Fiji’s involvement in the Summit has come at a crucial time as the country battles the COVID-19 pandemic once again.

He emphasizes that the Summit will be even more crucial to us as it enables Fiji and the rest of the world to study the challenges exposed or exacerbated by the COVID crisis and to find transformative solutions to emerge and build back.

Dass says given the COVID situation, it would be very likely that the remaining four national dialogues would be held virtually.

The Fiji national dialogues will consolidate diverse and transformative views and voices from stakeholders which would, feed into Fiji’s national report and submission to the UNFSS global Summit, being convened by the UN Secretary-General António Guterres in September.

The first national dialogue on Action Track 1 to “ensure safe and nutritious food for all” was held virtually on Monday, while the second national dialogue is being convened today to discuss and come up with actions under Action Track 2, which is, ‘Shift to Sustainable Consumption Patterns.