FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva praised Petrini’s contribution to increasing public awareness on the need to improve agriculture in Europe and ensure a sustainable food supply chain. According to Silva “These include numerous activities drawing attention to the necessity to reintroduce local crops that smallholders and subsistence farmers can produce for their own consumption and sell on the markets as a means to achieve food security,”
In his role as a Special Ambassador Zero Hunger, Petrini will help ensure a better understanding of FAO’s vision of a world free of hunger and malnutrition in which food and agriculture contribute towards improving livelihoods, particularly those of poor people. Accepting the appointment, Petrini said: “The shame of hunger … can and must be defeated within this generation; commitment in this regard must take a political priority in all international forums, along with national and civil society.”