Zoltán Kálmán

After having graduated from the University of Agricultural Sciences in Gödöllő in 1981, I worked at the Department of Agricultural Economics of the University for a few years. In my first foreign service, I gained useful international experience as an assistant to the Permanent Representation of Hungary to the FAO in Rome between 1985-89. From 1990 I worked in the business sector (consulting, trade, management of small food processing companies) in Hungary.

I was Counsellor of the Hungarian Embassy in Rome and Permanent Representative of Hungary to the FAO from 2003-2008. During this period our greatest achievement was the establishment in Budapest of FAO’s Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia and its Shared Service Centre. This is a unique success of the Hungarian agricultural diplomacy, with great professional significance, giving also many young Hungarian agricultural professionals job opportunities to gain international experience. Since then, the WHO, UNHCR, UNICEF, WFP have followed suit by establishing offices in Budapest, now providing more than a thousand jobs. As a result of the FAO agreement, hundreds of students from developing countries have graduated in agriculture in Hungary, many of them in Gödöllő.

From 2010, I headed the International Relations and the EU Coordination Departments of the Ministry of Agriculture. The organisation and management of the Ministry's international activities was a very complex, interesting and responsible job. One of my main tasks was the coordination of the first Hungarian EU Presidency’s work in the Ministry in 2011.

From 2014 to 2021, I was Hungary's UN Ambassador in Rome, with accreditation to FAO, WFP and IFAD. I was the first Hungarian elected as President of the WFP Executive Board for 2018. I was honoured to represent Europe as a member of the Advisory Board in preparation for the UN Food Systems Summit in 2021, together with my Italian, French and Russian colleagues. In recognition of the quality of my professional and diplomatic work, I have received Hungarian and French state awards. I wrote some articles/studies in English/Hungarian on the correlation of hunger-food security-sustainability. On request, I am happy to share my experiences on these topics, also with MATE students, including in the framework of the agricultural diplomacy programme.

I wrote some articles/studies in English/Hungarian on the correlation of hunger-food security-sustainability. On request, I am happy to share my experiences on these topics, also with MATE students, including in the framework of the agricultural diplomacy programme.