News

04 Jul 2003 -- Bangkok – International prices of rice have continued to strengthen since the beginning of the year and climbed to a two-year high, as rice stocks are drawn heavily and are at the lowest level for more than two decades. A combination of short export availabilities in several major exporting countries and strong international demand has fuelled the rise in international rice prices during 2003. For example, exports from the United [more...]

04 Jun 2003 -- ROME - A joint Special Report on the FAO/WFP Crop and Food Supply Assessment Mission to Timor-Leste, the world’s newest independent country, was released today. The joint FAO/WFP mission visited Timor-Leste from 15 April to 5 May 2003 to review and analyze the food supply and demand situation in the context of the country’s macro-economic situation, and to forecast import requirements including potential food needs in marketing year 2003/04 (April/March), [more...]

Thailand, 28 Mar 2003 -- Bangkok - FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf will visit Thailand on 2 and 3 April to mobilize backing for Asian food security and safety, and related global efforts to eradicate hunger.Dr Diouf is in Thailand as the official guest of the ministry of agriculture and cooperatives. The main concern of his present mission is to obtain renewed political commitment to the goal set by the landmark November 1996 World Food Summit [more...]

23 Feb 2003 -- Bangkok – Asia, with two-thirds of the world's underfed people, must give top priority to fighting hunger to build an additional defence against the rapidly growing HIV/AIDS pandemic that threatens social and economic chaos, according to a new FAO nutrition and health care manual. Take two tablets after meals, but don't forget the meals, says the world food agency.Published jointly with the World Health Organization (WHO), it highlights the hitherto [more...]

18 Feb 2003 -- Pattaya, Thailand - Eight South and Southeast Asian countries bordering the Bay of Bengal are meeting here to discuss cooperation to protect their fragile coastal and marine resources that are vital for the well-being of a quarter of humanity.Some 50 senior government officials from these countries and leading international marine ecosystem experts have gathered at this Thai beach resort for the 17 to 21 February 2003 First regional workshop of [more...]

13 Feb 2003 -- Bangkok -­ El Nino will continue to trouble agriculture in Indonesia, Micronesia, northern/northeastern Australia in early 2003, though with much less impact than in 1997-98, according to FAO’s latest survey of global food production and trade.The world food agency’s February 2003 Food Outlook cites recent reports from the major climate monitoring systems – IRI (International Research Institute for Climate Prediction); BOM (Australian Bureau of Meteorology); and NOAA/CPC (US Climate Prediction [more...]

Thailand, 16 Jan 2003 -- Bangkok - The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Thai ministry of agriculture and cooperatives today signed a project agreement dealing with meeting international food safety standards for the exports of fruits and vegetables as required by importing countries and set out by the WTO.Under an agreement signed with the Thai government today, the world food agency will offer its expertise to ensure that the production of fresh [more...]

24 Dec 2002 -- Bangkok - Hunger will remain a fact of life for many Asians as the slump in cereals production, including rice, is expected to continue in Asia and the rest of the world while population continues its inexorable rise, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) says in its latest global food supply report.Although farmers in Asia and Europe are now likely to produce slightly more crops this year than earlier [more...]

Papua New Guinea, 11 Dec 2002 -- Bangkok – A new South-South Cooperation Tripartite Agreement was announced today under the Special Programme for Food Security (SPFS) of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).The South-South Cooperation Tripartite Agreement was signed by the Philippines, Papua New Guinea and FAO. Under the agreement, Filipino agricultural experts and field technicians will be sent to Papua New Guinea to assist the government with expansion of the SPFS for up to two [more...]

the Lao People's Democratic Republic, 15 Nov 2002 -- Vientiane - The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) will assist Laos to popularise home food gardens to tackle high levels of chronic malnutrition in the Southeast Asian nation where nearly half of the children have stunted growth. Under an agreement signed with the Government of Lao PDR today, the world food agency will offer its expertise to improve household food security in one of the world’s poorest nations, where [more...]