Group of Eight agriculture ministers will speak of world hunger, food security and the fluctuation of market prices when they meet in Italy at the weekend, Italian Agriculture Minister Luca Zaia said Tuesday.
Zaia said the theme of ''productive identity'' will also be key at the two-day G8 agriculture summit taking place in Cison di Valmarino, near Treviso in the Veneto region.
''In agriculture there are two well-defined worlds: those that have agriculture with a productive identity such as Italy, which counts 4,500 typical products, and those that must invent their own agriculture. The latter would like to standardize production, tastes and consumption,'' he said.
Zaia said the G8 ministers would speak of ''real agriculture, practised by farmers who harvest food from the earth, not by multinationals'' as well as the effects of the global economic crisis on world hunger.
He said he hoped the meeting would result in a ''shared document'' that would be sent to the main G8 summit in July that will see heads of state gather on the Sardinian island of La Maddalena.
More than a dozen environmental groups are meanwhile running a protest summit, opening Wednesday and ending Sunday in Montebelluna, just a few kilometres from the G8 environment meeting.
This Land Is Our Land will see international experts discuss a number of themes including genetically modified crops and sustainability.
