Tashkent/Rome - The Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), QU Dongyu, presented President Shavkat Mirzioyoyev of Uzbekistan with the FAO Agricola Medal, the Organization's highest award, during his three-day visit to the capital of the Central Asian nation.
Following 13 years of public service as Prime Minister, Mirzioyovev has been President of Uzbekistan since 2016. The country's prevalence of undernourishment, estimated at around 20 percent in 2000, has been below 3.0 percent over the past decade, according to FAO calculations.
The Agricola Medal is FAO's highest honour and since 1977 has been bestowed on heads of state, government leaders and prominent figures who show exceptional political and moral commitment to eradicating hunger and advancing global food security and sustainable rural development. Earlier this year Qu gave the prize to Prime Minister Nahendra Modi of India.
FAO's Director-General noted that beyond reducing hunger, Uzbekistan is addressing some of the most pressing challenges facing agriculture today, including water scarcity, the climate crisis, land degradation and the need to produce more nutritious foods with fewer natural resources.
Qu hailed FAO's partnership with Uzbekistan since the country joined FAO in 2001. FAO opened a Representation in Tashkent in 2014, and the country has been unanimously elected for the first time as a member of FAO's Council for the 2028-2029 term. FAO currently has 35 active projects in Uzbekistan, including initiatives focused on school meal programmes, agricultural statistics, digital agriculture, biodiversity, One Health and integrated natural resources management. Joint work is strongly underpinned by the Country Programming Framework for 2026-2030.
Agriculture accounts for almost one-fifth of economic output in Uzbekistan, a dry and mountainous land whose neighbours are also land-locked, is mostly concentrated on limited irrigated and rainfed land.
Forging links for land-locked countries
While in Uzbekistan, the Director-General attended the opening on Wednesday of "Food Security & the SDGs in landlocked developing countries," a Global Technical Forum of Landlocked Developing Countries (LLDCs) on Food Security and the Sustainable Development Goals, organized by FAO with Uzbekistan's Ministry of Agriculture. Qu has campaigned strongly for LLDCs and shepherded a similar International High-Level Forum on such countries in Tashkent in 2024.
Qu has reaffirmed that Land-locked developing countries (LLDCs) need not be disconnected, and it is possible to transform their agrifood systems into "land-linked", digitally connected, regionally integrated and globally competitive actors.
LLDCs need to break the geographically-conditioned cycle of vulnerability and move towards greater resilience, Qu said in the opening session of the event, organized by Uzbekistan's Ministry of Agriculture of together with FAO, brings together ministers, FAO and international experts along with development partners to discuss food security, climate-resilient agriculture, efficient land and water use, innovation, market access and sustainable financing.
The world's 32 LLDCs are home to almost 600 million people, and many depend heavily on agriculture and related activities for employment, livelihoods and economic development, even as their unique geographic characteristics often hinder their competitiveness and full integration into global markets. Around one in six of the people living in these countries are hungry, and almost 57 percent cannot afford a healthy diet, according to The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) Report 2026.
Qu spoke at the opening plenary with Ibrokhim Abdurakhmonov, Uzbekistan's Agriculture Minister, high-level representatives of participating countries, and several senior U.N. officials. FAO Chief Economist Maximo Torero gave the keynote address, focusing on moving LLDCs from vulnerability to resilience, while FAO officers from the Subregional Office for Central Asia and the FAO Office for SIDS, LDCs and LLDCs moderated panels with delegates from international organizations, academia and the private sector.
Director-General Qu emphasized FAO's ongoing commitment to supporting LLDCs, noting that it implemented 489 projects with budgets amounting to $410 million in 2025, and has a project portfolio of $2.5 billion. A majority of LLDCs are participating in FAO's Hand-in-Hand and One Country One Priority Product initiatives.
World Cotton Day
FAO's Director-General also celebrated World Cotton Day 2026 on 7 October, noting the crop plays a vital role in the economies of many countries, often providing important export revenues.
He praised Uzbekistan for showing how improvements in cotton production, spurred by adopting improved varieties and modern farming approaches, can be combined with greater value addition, as evidenced by the country's $2.6 billion in textile exports to 75 countries in 2025.
"Fiber crop improvement contributes to food security," Qu said in remarks that emphasized the importance not just of improving yields but also of enhancing cotton's resilience in the face of drought and pests, and for boosting related value chains. "We need transformation of agrifood systems globally," he said. "We need to improve agricultural infrastructure."
On Tuesday, Qu spoke at Tashkent State Agrarian University, pointing out that Central Asia had been a "bridge between civilizations" in the Silk Road era and that today as then the region can be a pathway for agricultural innovation along which seeds, plants, animals, technologies and knowledge travel.
He urged students to start with the challenges they face, not the technologies on offer, noting that water and soil degradation are major issues in the region. "The future of agriculture in this region will increasingly depend on producing more with less water," he said, noting that solutions can be advanced but fundamentally depend on understanding farmers' needs.
