The 22nd EAOC Top Level Meeting Opening Address

The 22^nd EAOC Top Level Meeting

OPENING ADDRESS

by

Mr. Bayartsaikhan N., President of NAMAC

(September 10^th, 2012, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia)

Mr. Hajime Yaguchi, Executive Director of Central Union of Agricultural Cooperatives JA-ZENCHU of Japan,

Mr. Sung-Hee Lee, Chairman of Auditing Committee of National Agricultural Cooperative Federation of Korea,

Mr. Ching-Tien Hsiao, Chief of Supervisors of Taiwan Provincial Farmers’ Association,

Mr. Natwarlal Pitamberdas Patel, Chairman of Indian Farmers Fertilizer Cooperative Limited,

Distinguished Delegates and Guests,

First of all, on behalf of the host organization, I would like to welcome you all to Mongolia and to the opening of the 22^nd EAOC Top Level Meeting.

We, the East Asian Agricultural Organization Council members, convene annually to develop mutually beneficial cooperation and discuss common issues faced by Asian countries, such as climate change, food security, and supply, international trade imbalance and agree on terms to reduce their negative impacts on agriculture.

The UN 64^th General Assembly approved the initiative of the Government of Mongolia and declared 2012 as the International Year of Cooperatives. We, at NAMAC, conveyed to the Government of Mongolia the importance of this initiative based on our past experience proposing and subsequently celebrating 2003 as the Year of Cooperative Development Support in Mongolia.

We are very much pleased to host the 22^nd EAOC Top Level Meeting in Mongolia in the International Year of Cooperatives, and I am most grateful for your attendance.

Today, we are meeting here to discuss our views on the theme “Cooperative Development: Challenges for the next decade in Asia” and to define our mutual activities to be implemented in the next ten years in the region.

One of the most vital issues we face today is world hunger and food shortages amid an atmosphere of population growth, income disparity, and increasing agricultural production demand.

I believe that this meeting will play an important role in facilitating the exchange of our experiences and in strengthening our collaboration in terms of overcoming major challenges such as increasing food prices, rapid urbanization and shrinking farmlands, and the decreasing number of agricultural producers and their aging.

In order to meaningfully celebrate the International Year of Cooperatives, the Government of Mongolia, together with cooperative organizations, adopted a three-year “Campaign to promote the rural cooperative movement”. Within the scope of the program, nationwide activities have started to improve the hygiene and quality standards of the agricultural outputs produced by rural herders, link local producers to processors, incentivize producers to trade on the impending Agricultural commodity exchange, provide preferential loans to agricultural cooperatives and develop their human resource capacity.

The national association supports and participates in Government actions on cooperative development, and I sincerely hope that these actions will soar in the term of the new Government, which was formed just a month ago.

NAMAC initiated and successfully implemented a number of large nationwide programs. Partnering with local technology producer “MGM Group” LLC, we are implementing the “ICT in Agriculture” program through our branches. This program is essential to improve the livelihood of remote rural communities by introducing new information technologies and equipment, environmentally friendly renewable energy solutions, and by increasing the possibility for herders to use all kinds of electronic appliances.

I would like to express here that NAMAC, on behalf of all its members and as a member of International Cooperative Alliance, is willing to participate in any policies and activities that seek to solve the issues we face.

I appeal to the Central Union of Agricultural Cooperatives of Japan, the National Agricultural Cooperative Federation of Korea, the Taiwan Provincial Farmers Association, the Indian Farmers Fertilizer Cooperative Limited and the National Association of Mongolian Agricultural Cooperatives, in order to conquer the challenges we will face in the next decade and initiate concrete programs to strengthen our collaboration in terms of experience sharing, trainings and projects.

We also would like to propose the establishment of an “EAOC fund” dedicated to enhancing members’ business skills and to protecting agricultural cooperatives, farmers and herders from climate and financial/economic risks. With the purpose of generating sources for the fund, we are poised to pledge 500 thousand USD.

Lastly, to effectively overcome our challenges we must consolidate our strength, and I wish that our future cooperation will be prosperous and abundant.

Thank you very much for your attention.