FAO - Technical Assistance
FAO Animal Production Service’s operational activities in the field of feed safety include technical and policy assistance, investment support and the overall management of activities associated with the formulation and implementation of in-country, sub-regional and regional programmes and projects, e.g. the Implementation of Safe Animal Feeding Standards and Good Production Practices for the Livestock Industry (see Model Project).  FAO's Household and Community Nutrition Group provides assistance to improve household food security and community nutrition. On this page, you will find information about FAO activities, projects, meetings and publications.

FAO receives requests for assistance to Member Countries and obtains approval authority for them. It carries out its activities through its staff located at headquarters and, increasingly, the decentralized offices, and through field project staff.

Most of the human resources are provided from projects, support cost or other extra-budgetary funds, although a substantial contribution is provided from FAO's own budget.

FAO manages the Technical Cooperation Programme (TCP) and mobilizes resources for operational activities from governmental, private sector and other non-governmental sources, for which it also maintains responsibility for policy development and formal relations.

 pic1.jpg (6578 bytes)
MODEL PROJECT

Implementation of Safe Animal Feeding Standards and Good Production Practices for the Livestock Industry

The livestock sector plays an essential role in agricultural and economic development as well as food security. In recent years, livestock output has grown steadily and at the same time, there has been a major increase in production and trade of feedingstuffs. It is suggested that much of the increase in livestock production in developing countries has been based on imported feeds. The intensification of livestock production and the increasing trade in raw materials for the feed industry, as well as livestock products, demands greater attention to risk management by all countries.

Public concern about the safety of foods of animal origin has recently heightened due to problems that have arisen with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), dioxin contamination, outbreaks of foodborne bacterial infections, as well as growing concern about veterinary drug residues and microbial resistance to antibiotics. These problems have drawn attention to feeding practices within the livestock industry and have prompted health professionals and the feed industry to closely scrutinise food quality .

The Technical Cooperation Programme is an essential means to make FAO's specialized competence more readily available to Member Nations for the solution of their most pressing development problems in the agriculture, fisheries and forestry sectors and rural development

TCP provides technical inputs in the form of short-term expert and consultant services, short-term and practical-oriented training activities, equipment and supplies deemed essential for project activities.

TCP projects may include sub-contracts to institutions for technical services.

Requests for Technical Assistance under the Programme may be presented by Governments of Member Countries which qualify for development assistance under the UN system and by inter-governmental organizations of which such countries are members, and are recognized as such, by the UN System and FAO. They may also be submitted by national non-government organizations (NGOs), if endorsed by the Government concerned.

Moreover, the FAO Legal Office provides in-house counsel in accordance with the Basic Texts of the Organization, gives legal advisory services to FAO members, assists in the formulation of treaties on food and agriculture for which the Director-General acts as Depositary, publishes legal studies.