From July 8 to 10, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) held the inaugural workshop of the “Global Action on Green Development of Special Agricultural Products: One Country One Priority Product (OCOP)” at its headquarters in Rome, Italy. As the core technical support institution for FAO’s “One Country, One Product” initiative, the Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences (CATAS) dispatched experts from its Tropical Crop Variety and Germplasm Resources Institute, Spice and Beverage Research Institute, and Coconut Research Institute. The CATAS team, specializing in seven tropical crops—cassava, banana, avocado, mango, cocoa, jackfruit, and date palm—these experts provided full-value-chain technical support for projects on tropical specialty agricultural products in nine countries: the Republic of the Congo (Congo-Brazzaville), Malawi, Tanzania, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Samoa, Trinidad and Tobago, Egypt, and Iraq.
Figure 1: Group Photo of the Workshop
The CATAS expert team stood out as a leading technical provider at the event. Their innovative technologies, such as rapid tissue culture propagation, biological pest control, and advanced processing techniques, attracted significant attention from participating countries. Haffez Mumminjanov, FAO Global Coordinator for the “One Country, One Product” initiative, emphasized, “More than 60% of participating countries are located in tropical regions. The experience of CATAS in developing value chains for crops such as cassava has directly contributed to project implementation,” noted Hafez Muminjanov, FAO Global Coordinator for OCOP.
Figure 2: FAO Presents Chief Expert Certificates to CATAS Specialists
The workshop brought together project leaders from 15 demonstration countries across FAO’s five global regions to jointly map out the implementation roadmap for the “One Country, One Product” initiative. Launched by FAO Director-General QU Dongyu in September 2021, the initiative aims to assist countries in promoting sustainable development by leveraging their local specialty agricultural products. It currently covers 95 countries and supports 56 agricultural products, including high-potential crops such as bananas, cocoa, and date palms.
China is the largest single donor to the initiative, contributing USD 5 million through the FAO-China South-South Cooperation Programme. Beth Bechdol, FAO Deputy Director-General, specifically noted, “South-South and triangular cooperation are key to amplifying the project’s impact. China has played an irreplaceable role in advancing the transformation of food systems.”
