Mr. Chairman, Director-General, distinguished colleagues, ladies and gentlemen.

It is an honor and a pleasure to be here in the Eternal City, and to join my colleagues from all over the world at this 33rd plenary session of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

I am proud to represent the United States of America as we review the state of food and agriculture and the mission of this important organization.

This conference comes at a crucial time. In little more than two weeks, we will meet in Hong Kong for the World Trade Organization's 6th Ministerial.

We've not made the progress that we had hoped to enable us to set forth a balanced package on agriculture because our ambitious offer has not been matched. But our commitment to the Doha Round is as strong as ever.

Hong Kong is an important milestone along the way but not the end of this process. The United States is pushing hard for a very successful meeting, and over the next few days we're going to be pushing to build a consensus in order for us to have a successful ministerial and negotiations throughout 2006.

The stakes are enormously high - the Doha Round is a once-in-a generation opportunity. It will determine whether developing countries will gain the opportunity to share in the benefits of expanded global trade, the primary engine for more robust economic development. And all eyes are on agriculture.

We cannot afford to miss out on an opportunity to significantly stimulate the global economy - and provide millions of impoverished people some hope for a better future.

About 70 percent of the population of developing countries are on track to meet the Millennium Development Goal for poverty reduction. However, more must be done-progress around the world is uneven and half of humanity still lives on less than $2 per day.

At the 2002 Monterrey Summit on Financing for Development, developing countries agreed to take responsibility for their own economic progress through good governance, sound policies, and the rule of law. And developed countries agreed to support those efforts.

To help realize this partnership between developed and developing countries, President Bush established the Millennium Challenge Account and pledged to increase U.S. core development assistance by 50 percent over three years.

The United States has actually gone beyond the President's pledge-Official Development Assistance has increased from $10 billion in 2000 to $19 billion in 2004.

Over the past four years, the United States has tripled its assistance to Sub-Saharan Africa. In June, President Bush announced an additional $647 million to respond to humanitarian emergencies.

Despite these record amounts of assistance, even more will be required to grow the economies of developing countries. Private sector involvement is essential in generating that additional assistance.

Several recent highly credible studies have affirmed that the developing world stands to gain enormously from the Doha Round.

One such study, from the Institute for International Economics and the Center for Global Development, reports that more open trade would increase the income of developing countries by $200 billion annually.

The United Nations MDG report estimates that deep liberalization could decrease the number of people living on $1 a day or less by 61 million, and the number of people living on $2 per day by 144 million by the year 2015.

Achieving fundamental reform of agricultural trade is a critical component in these negotiations.

That is why the United States unveiled a bold, ambitious proposal to increase market access, reduce trade-distorting domestic support and eliminate export subsidies.

This proposal broke the stalemate and dramatically changed the dynamics of the negotiations. Now, it is the responsibility of others to be equally as bold.

The United States remains committed to helping countries participate in a liberalized trading regime by promoting worldwide science-based standards.

We appreciate that FAO's proposed budget protects both the Codex and the International Plant Protection Convention. The work of these standards-setting bodies is imperative.

The United States deeply appreciates the important role FAO plays in other aspects of agricultural capacity building, such as biotechnology and disease eradication.

At the U.N. General Assembly in September, President Bush announced a new international partnership on avian and pandemic influenza. We will continue to coordinate our emergency response efforts with those of the FAO.

Given the importance of achieving all of these goals, we are concerned with some aspects of the Director-General's reform proposal, especially any shift in FAO's focus away from its traditional standards-setting activities, data collection, and analysis and toward fieldwork.

We also need to view the reform proposal in the broader context of the Independent External Evaluation of FAO. And, at the same time, reforms must be placed with the budget. FAO should closely examine its budget to ensure that it is disciplined, accountable, and efficient. The United States supports a zero nominal growth budget for 2006-2007.

The United States places a great deal of importance on FAO's mission. Working together, we can bring developing countries into an ever-expanding circle of trade and development.

That is what developing countries seek-a chance to earn their way out of poverty by participating in the world economy. We look forward to pursuing these worthy goals with you.

Thank you very much.