The D-8 Secretary General attended the Senior Official Meeting (SOM) for the 5th Agricultural Ministerial Meeting Food Security on 2 December 2014 in Istanbul. 

Dr. Mousavi expressed his appreciation to the Government of Turkey particularly the Ministry of Agriculture of Turkey for organizing the meeting and thank to all delegates for their presence and for their contribution during Working Group Meetings.

 

Dr. Mousavi highlighted the progress of the five working groups as follows:

1. Working Group on Fertilizer: D-8 Member States to implement common strategies toward the sufficiency of production, supply and distribution of quality fertilizers in D-8 Member States. D-8 Secretariat support establishment of D-8 Fertilizer Association (D8FA) in order to accelerate common project under fertilizer sector.

2. Working Group on Seed Bank: D-8 Member States are encouraged to establish the tri-level seed bank for supporting the supply of high quality seeds and the diversity of plant genetic resources to expedite formulating collaborative research and development programs between D-8 private and public sector stakeholders. 

3. Working Group on Animal Feed: D-8 Member States should exchange their information and experience on capacity building and cooperation in research and development in order to find appropriated technologies in improving the quality local feedstuffs and to submit their information on trade and production of animal feed to the Animal Feed Information Center (www.d8-afic.org) and to the D-8 Secretariat.

4. Working Group on Marine Affairs and Fisheries: D-8 Member States should strengthen collaborative efforts on technology transfer, capacity building programme, intra-trade in fisheries, fish health management, fish quality and database system, and promoting eco-marine tourism as the main areas of cooperation.

5. Working Group on Standard on Trade:  D-8 Member States should explore the possibility on having harmonization standards and regulations of agriculture and fisheries products through capacity building and technical cooperation along the chain of agriculture and food production, processing, marketing and distribution.

Dr. Mousavi believe that Working Groups have had proper modality to scratch project proposals along with its proper feasibility studies and action plan and he expressed his confident that through constructive cooperation D-8 will succeed in reaping the fruits of our endeavors in the near future in the agricultural sector.