Press Release
May 1, 2008

ANGARA TO ADDRESS U.N. CONFERENCE ON FOOD AND RURAL DEV'T

Senator Edgardo J. Angara has accepted the invitation to be a speaker at the 16th Session of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development on 6-10 May in New York.

Angara is the only top Filipino government official invited to be a panelist at the conference. He was chosen to speak on international agricultural trade and access to markets, with special focus on rural development. The theme of the conference is "Agriculture and Rural Development".

Angara is the chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Food and the Congressional Commission on Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization (COCAFM), a bicameral body of the Philippine Congress.

A former Secretary of the Department of Agriculture (DA), Angara principally authored the Agricultural Fisheries Modernization Act (AFMA) of 1997, a masterplan for agricultural modernization which other countries in Southeast Asia have adopted.

Agriculture accounts for about a fifth of the Philippines' gross domestic product (GDP) and about forty percent of total employment. About half of Filipino families live in the rural sector.

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