Agência Brasil
Brasília – The Minister of Agrarian Development, Miguel Rossetto, participated last week, in the First International Agricultural Forum, 2005, in Dakar, the capital of Senegal. The discussions during the two-day meeting revolved around the role of agriculture in the development of Third World countries and government policies to expand the agricultural and technology capacity of these nations, among other themes.
The main purpose of the forum is to help formulate an agricultural development strategy that takes into account political and economic factors and the potential contributions of science and technology, principally for the poorest countries.
Rossetto represented President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva at the event. "Our presence is part of an effort to find more room for cooperation and collaboration between the Brazilian government and Africa," Rossetto told Radiobrás in an interview prior to his departure.
Brazil presented strategies of rural development and agricultural policies aimed at strengthening family farming and agrarian reform. Examples included experiences in the areas of organization of cooperatives, funding policies, seed storage, and sanitary norms. "We have technology and experiences, and we shall exchange these experiences at the conference always from the perspective of this strategy: boosting the environment of cooperation and encouraging a strategy of rural development," he pointed out.
