3 December 2012, Rome - The International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC) will hold the initial meeting of the IPPC Capacity Development Committee (CDC). The meeting will take place 3-7 December, hosted by the Italian Rural Development Directorate at the Ministry of...[more]

The Sixth Session of the Intergovernmental Technical Working Group on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture will be held at FAO headquarters in Rome from 14 to 16 November 2012. The Working Group was established by the Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and...[more]

Every day more than 800 transfers of seeds on average are made worldwide for research, training and breeding purposes within the global gene pool of FAO’s International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA). Each of these transfers travels under a...[more]

FAO’s Sub-Regional Centre for the Caribbean (SLC) is hosting a Two-Day Regional Consultation on Sustainable Crop Production Intensification (SCPI) in the Caribbean from 4-5 October 2012. The objectives of the consultation are to:introduce FAO’s ‘Save and Grow’ as the...[more]

A regional workshop about Establishment of Seed Policies was held in Bolivia from 27 to 29 August 2012. It was organized in cooperation by the Seeds and Plant Genetic Resources unit in Rome and the AGP Team of Chile as part of the technical hub created. Funds were provided from...[more]

Africa's urban population is growing faster than that of any other region, but many of its cities are not keeping pace with the increasing demand for food that comes with that growth. A new FAO publication says policymakers need to act now to steer urbanization toward healthy,...[more]

September 2012 - In response to the uneven results of development assistance to date, FAO is henceforth to encourage a series of good practices, including the use of "integrated projects", whose implementation is based on the entire value chain and the use of an ...[more]

Since 2010, twenty-nine small rural enterprises in the business of producing high quality seed have been producing enough bean seed to plant 78,000 hectares, which will make bean grain available to 296,000 families in Costa Rica, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua,...[more]

Globally, fruit flies (Diptera, Tephritidae) are one of the most agriculturally important families of insects. About 70 species of fruit flies are considered important agricultural pests, causing very high losses every year. Fruit flies attack fruits of many important crops,...[more]

June 2012, Rio de Janeiro - The European Commission is contributing €5 million euros (6.5 million dollars) towards the Benefit-sharing Fund of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, FAO announced today, at a high-level ministerial meeting...[more]