Greetings from Cuba to all participants in this year’s World Food Forum, as the FAO marks eight decades of uniting efforts to free the planet from one of humanity’s greatest scourges: hunger.

I am honored and encouraged by your invitation to be one of the speakers at the World Food Forum, representing a founding member of the FAO—an organization with which we share strong historical bonds of cooperation and common goals in the fight to eradicate hunger, promote agricultural transformation, and foster sustainable rural development.

We are especially inspired to take part in the WFF, given that its three pillars—youth, science and innovation, and investment—seek to accelerate the transformation of agrifood systems in order to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), an effort we fully share.

It is impossible to forget that the FAO emerged in a postwar context, with Europe devastated and millions of people facing hunger in the aftermath of the conflict.

Tragically, the same challenge the world faced then remains today: to achieve a world free of hunger and malnutrition, where food and agriculture sustainably improve living standards for all.

Over the past eight decades, the world has become more complex, unjust, and perilous for tens of millions of people, due to wars, climate change, and the ever-widening gap between those who have and those who have not—between the ultra-rich and the dispossessed, the hungry, the outcasts of the neoliberal market era.

In this dramatic context, we must always acknowledge the FAO’s valuable contribution to improving the lives of millions around the world and its support for nations striving to establish sustainable food systems. Cuba can attest to these efforts and this support.

In 1978, an official FAO representation was established in Cuba, marking the beginning of crucial cooperation to strengthen food security and sustainable rural development.

Our historic leader, Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro Ruz, attended the inauguration of the current FAO headquarters in Cuba in 1992—an expression of the high importance he placed, from the very beginning, on FAO programs and his unwavering advocacy for solidarity and fraternity among peoples in the fight against hunger and poverty.

His address at the 1996 World Food Summit remains a landmark moment in FAO’s history, with his powerful warning to world leaders, and I quote: “The bells that are tolling today for those who die of hunger every day will toll tomorrow for the whole of humanity if it does not wish, or is not wise enough, or capable enough to save itself.”

Throughout decades of cooperation, the FAO has been a pillar of support for Cuba, providing technical assistance and vital resources for the country’s agricultural development, food production, and the strengthening of high-level scientific institutions in the agricultural sector.

Cuba, for its part, has placed its capacities and experience at the service of South-South cooperation, sharing knowledge and best practices with other developing nations.

Today, the FAO stands as a key partner in supporting the country’s transformation of agrifood systems, confronting climate change, and conserving biodiversity.

The FAO also promotes the empowerment of women and youth in rural areas, encourages the application of science and technology, and facilitates knowledge transfer to enable more efficient, sustainable, and resilient production.

Its support has been essential in building and implementing public policies aimed at transforming local food systems, including the Food Sovereignty and Food and Nutritional Security Law, along with other related regulations. With FAO’s assistance, in 2025, Cuba is implementing 13 projects across 59 municipalities on the island.

Given our shared history and common purpose, the FAO’s 80th anniversary is a celebration we feel as our own. This Forum serves as further proof of our alignment in facing the challenges of food security for humans and animals in an era once again darkened by wars and threats of war—an era in which some do not hesitate to use hunger as an instrument of control and subjugation.

Unilateral coercive measures, such as the criminal blockade against Cuba—lasting more than six decades and continually intensified—aim to force our people into submission through hunger and deprivation. Similar genocidal methods are being applied against Palestinians in Gaza. Meanwhile, the unjust international order, the legacies of colonialism and neocolonialism, and the deep poverty induced by these factors—combined with climate change—continue to afflict vast regions of the Global South.

I mention these realities not to cast a shadow on the celebration we share, but to highlight the extraordinary challenges the FAO faces in these difficult times—and to recognize the merit of all those who work tirelessly within the organization to eradicate hunger from the planet.

The commemoration of FAO’s 80th anniversary offers us the opportunity to acknowledge its work alongside Cuba in achieving better production, better nutrition, a better environment, and a better life—leaving no one behind. Together with the FAO, we continue consolidating our essential goals within the country to advance toward more efficient, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable agrifood systems.

Thank you very much.