26 Oct 09

Ground control operations are in progress against an infestation of desert locusts in Mauritania. As long as there are no heavy rains the infestations should be eliminated by early December, FAO said today. Seventeen teams from the National Locust C...

21 Sep 09

Poor 2009 crop prospects in the Horn of Africa following below-average rains, combined with conflict and displacement are aggravating an already serious food insecurity situation in the region, FAO said today. Nearly 20 million people currently depe...

14 Sep 09

FAO has started a major operation in support of small scale farmers in Zimbabwe as part of its joint efforts with the European Union (EU) to fight hunger this year. The organization has procured 26 000 tons of seeds and fertilizers for distribution t...

20 Aug 09

USD 10.2 million scheme to distribute and multiply quality seeds in Haiti has significantly increased food production in the Caribbean nation providing cheaper food for the population and boosting farmers' incomes. Requested by the Haitian governmen...

31 Jul 09

FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf has invited governments around the world to participate in negotiations to agree on a declaration for adoption by the World Summit of Heads of State and Government on Food Security, to take place from 16 to 18 Novem...

23 Jul 09

A major offensive aimed at bringing Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) under global control has been launched by FAO and the Paris-based World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE).  The initiative, presented and supported at a recent OIE/FAO Global...

10 Jul 09

FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf today welcomed the G8’s USD 20 billion Food Security Initiative as an encouraging policy shift in favour of the poor and hungry. Addressing the G8, Diouf said “The L’Aquila Joint Statement on Global Foo...

25 Jun 09

High food insecurity persists in Zimbabwe in spite of improvements in agricultural production and a more liberal import policy this year, according to a report issued today by FAO and the World Food Programme (WFP). Good rainfall meant 2009 product...

24 Jun 09

An international Red Locust emergency campaign in Eastern and Southern Africa has succeeded in containing a massive locust outbreak in Tanzania, FAO said today. It is the first time that biopesticides are being used on a large scale in Africa against...

19 Jun 09

World hunger is projected to reach a historic high in 2009 with 1 020 million people going hungry every day, according to new estimates published by FAO today. The most recent increase in hunger is not the consequence of poor global harvests but is...

17 Jun 09

Because food is a basic necessity, the agriculture sector is showing more resilience to the global economic crisis than other industries. But the risks could increase if the economic downturn deepens, according to a new report by the OECD and FAO rel...

28 May 09

Myanmar sign $5.2 million programme to boost long-term food security - A three-year Italian-funded FAO programme to improve the long-term food security of 32 000 poor fishing and farming families in Myanmar has been agreed, FAO said today. The...

15 May 09

Europe remains firmly committed to help poor countries boost agricultural production, FAO said today, welcoming a historic €106 million ($144 million) donation from the European Union in support of farmers hardest hit by the global food crisis. Th...

07 May 09

Following the disastrous 2005 earthquake in Pakistan, several humanitarian organizations came forward to help households who had lost their livestock to rebuild herds and flocks by providing replacement animals. But most of the animal shelters in th...

30 Apr 09

With WHO raising its pandemic alert level from 4 to 5, countries worldwide are being urged to take adequate precautionary measures against the newly found A/H1N1 virus, and to be prepared for the eventual case of a pandemic. The challenge for gover...

27 Apr 09

The FAO-OIE Crisis Management Centre – Animal Health is mobilizing a team of experts to assist government efforts to protect the pig sector from the novel H1N1 virus by confirming there is no direct link to pigs, increasing animal disease surveilla...

02 Apr 09

FAO has urged policy makers to include agriculture in negotiations for a new climate change treaty to replace the 1997 Kyoto protocol. "Agricultural land is able to store and sequester carbon. Farmers that live off the land, particularly in poo...

23 Mar 09

The Heads of Government of CARICOM countries as well as President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil and President Michelle Bachelet of Chile are putting their support behind a proposal by FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf for a World Summit on Fo...

19 Mar 09

963 million human beings are currently suffering from hunger worldwide. This dramatic trend must be reversed. The Association of European Professional Football Leagues (EPFL) and its 29 members and associate Members have joined forces with the Food...

04 Feb 09

Findings made during a field verification and evaluation visit by an international team of scientists led by experts from FAO and the Government of Liberia suggest that the potential threats of current and future outbreaks in the ongoing Liberian cat...

30 Jan 09

Almost all of Gaza's 13 000 families who depend on farming, herding and fishing have suffered damage to their assets during the recent conflict and many farms have been completely destroyed, FAO said today. Destruction caused to the agricultural sec...

22 Jan 09

Huge hordes of ravenous caterpillars have appeared in northern Liberia, destroying crops and vegetation, sending terrified villagers fleeing from their homes, and raising the spectre of a food, health and environmental emergency in West Africa. FAO...

13 Jan 09

A high-level delegation of European football officials and former star players representing the Professional Football Against Hunger awareness and fundraising campaign will visit FAO TeleFood projects in Cairo, Egypt on 14 January. A press conference...

05 Jan 09

Following the detection of the Ebola-Reston virus in pigs in the Philippines, FAO, the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) and the World Health Organization (WHO) announced today that the government of the Philippines has requested the three a...

22 Dec 08

Farmers, experts and development partners agree that training and capacity building are urgently needed to support efforts for improved rural production and raising livelihoods of families affected by the May 2008 earthquake in China’s Sichuan prov...

09 Dec 08

Another 40 million people have been pushed into hunger this year primarily due to higher food prices, according to preliminary estimates published by FAO today. This brings the overall number of undernourished people in the world to 963 million, comp...

08 Dec 08

Around 40 percent of the population of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), an estimated 8.7 million people, mostly young children, pregnant and nursing women and the elderly, will urgently need food assistance because of an expected cer...

02 Dec 08

Ocean warming, frequent tropical cyclones, flash floods and droughts are likely to have a devastating impact on food production systems in Pacific island countries, FAO warned today. Climate change-related disasters are already imposing serious...

13 Nov 08

After years of massive crop losses caused by a devastating virus, farmers are harvesting healthy cassava - one of Africa's principal foodstuffs - throughout the Great Lakes region, FAO announced today, hailing the achievement as a milestone in its ev...

12 Nov 08

Representatives of major wheat producing countries have called for urgent coordinated action to prevent and control the wheat stem rust disease strain Ug99, FAO said today. The fungus is capable of causing heavy damage to wheat crops and is a ma...

11 Nov 08

The United States will provide an additional USD 44.4 million in support of FAO's avian influenza control and prevention campaign, FAO announced today. With the new funding from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), US...

10 Nov 08

The sudden death of South African singer and human rights activist Miriam Makeba, 76, has claimed the voice of one of FAO’s most dedicated advocates, FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf said today. “For nearly a decade, FAO Goodwill Ambassador Mi...

27 Oct 08

Communities in Haiti suffering severe food insecurity are to be assisted by a USD 10.2 million package which will quickly boost Haiti’s battered agriculture sector. The funds come at a time when Haiti is facing the double challenge of recover...

16 Oct 08

FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf today called for a political and financial push to boost sustainable agriculture in the world’s poor countries, double global food production and free the world of hunger and malnutrition. Speaking at a ceremony...

15 Oct 08

Governments should avoid reducing aid to developing countries’ agriculture and introducing protectionist trade measures in response to the unfolding global financial crisis, FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf cautioned today. In a statement markin...

18 Sep 08

Rising prices have plunged an additional 75 million people below the hunger threshold, bringing the estimated number of undernourished people worldwide to 923 million in 2007, FAO said today. High food prices have reversed the previously positi...

09 Sep 08

FAO is helping Morocco deal with an outbreak of peste des petits ruminants (PPR) that threatens to kill millions of sheep and goats and could possibly spread to neighbouring countries. The outbreak has largely affected sheep, with 133 outbreaks in 2...

08 Sep 08

FAO will help cash-strapped farmers in Swaziland to purchase seeds in time for the next planting season, Director-General Jacques Diouf said today. Diouf was speaking to reporters while visiting a school-based farming project in Boyane, near the cap...

28 Aug 08

A month-long series of plantings is coming to an end in eastern Madagascar, aimed at ensuring that the local food supply – of rice especially – is sufficient to avoid importing large quantities at high prices to meet the country’s food needs th...

11 Aug 08

A strain of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza previously not recorded in sub-Saharan Africa has been detected in Nigeria for the first time, FAO said today. Nigeria has recently reported two new Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza outbreaks in the stat...

04 Aug 08

In readiness for the new planting season, FAO has started distributing urgently-needed seeds and tools to Haiti’s most vulnerable farmers to help them cope with the rising cost of food, fuel and fertilizer. Some 600 tonnes of seeds, including bea...

31 Jul 08

As part of an urgent relief effort FAO’s Peru office has provided 36 800 doses of antiparistic medicines, antibiotics and vitamins to poor farmers in highland Peru whose livestock are suffering as a result of a severe unseasonable cold spell. The s...

17 Jul 08

FAO seeks USD 33.5 million to help small farmers and fishers restore livelihoods.  With the clock ticking on Myanmar’s main planting season, agricultural support is urgently needed to restore food production in the country’s cyclone-hit...

03 Jul 08

Hunger on the rise due to soaring food prices.  The number of hungry people increased by about 50 million in 2007 as a result of high food prices, FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf said today addressing a conference at the European Parliament i...

30 Jun 08

Over 30 million people in rural areas affected – rehabilitation of agriculture could take 3 to 5 years.  The agricultural sector in China’s Sichuan province has suffered enormous damage estimated at around $6 billion caused by last month’s...

04 Jun 08

FAO has begun emergency activities worth USD 17 million to respond to historically high food prices, which threaten to leave the globe’s 862 million people afflicted by hunger in an even worse situation, and push millions more people back into extr...

03 Jun 08

Noting that the time for talk was over and that action was urgently needed, FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf today appealed to world leaders for USD 30 billion a year to re-launch agriculture and avert future threats of conflicts over food. In an...

22 May 08

Increased hunger likely in some poor countries. High food prices have particularly hit vulnerable populations in many countries that spend a substantial part of their income on food, according to a report released today by the UN Food and Agricu...

19 May 08

Situation could worsen, particularly for urban poor and drought-hit rural communities.  The humanitarian situation in Somalia is deteriorating quickly due to soaring food prices, a significantly devalued Somali shilling, and worsening drought, F...

09 May 08

USD 10 million urgently needed to assist poor farming and fishing communities.  The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) today called for USD 10 million to assist poor farming and fishing communities in Myanmar devastated by cyclone N...

05 May 08

Statement by FAO's Director General, Dr Jacques Diouf, following the announcement by U.S. President George W. Bush that he is asking Congress to approve an additional USD 770 million in food aid and assistance to agriculture to address the food...

29 Apr 08

High food prices not just threat but opportunity - FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf today called on the international community not only to take immediate action to de-fuse the current world food emergency but also to seize the opportunities offere...

10 Apr 08

Bleak prospects for the upcoming harvest - Extreme dry weather in several provinces of Zimbabwe is likely to cause serious damage to the main 2008 maize harvest, FAO warned today. This could aggravate an already precarious food security situation in...

09 Apr 08

UN agency chiefs highlight role of agro-industries – Urgent measures are needed to ensure that short-term adverse effects of higher food prices do not impact even more alarmingly on the very poor, FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf said today. Add...

26 Mar 08

New scientific findings published - Ducks, people and rice paddies, rather than chickens, are the major factors behind outbreaks of H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza in Thailand and Viet Nam, and are probably behind outbreak persistence in other...

18 Mar 08

High load of circulating virus could lead to mutation and a human influenza pandemic - The prevalence of avian influenza in Indonesia remains serious despite containment efforts undertaken by national authorities and the international community, FAO...

13 Mar 08

FAO Goodwill Ambassador says support for women crucial to nation’s improvement amid fragile peace - Singer and activist Miriam Makeba says women survivors of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo face a “triple tragedy” of phy...

29 Feb 08

Livestock devastated - high fuel, cereal prices reduce poor’s access to food - Extreme cold has devastated the Afghan livestock sector, killing over 300 000 animals since late December and seriously affecting livelihoods. High prices for...

21 Feb 08

Projects target herders, fishers, horticulture - Despite restrictions which make it hard to import essential inputs, FAO is helping restore agricultural production and improve farmers’ livelihoods in the Gaza Strip through a series of emergency pro...

21 Feb 08

FAO assistance addresses immediate and long-term needs - Heavy rains are expected to continue in the Zambezi River basin through the end of March 2008, posing an imminent risk to the lives and livelihoods of at least 1 million people in Malawi, Mozam...

24 Jan 08

Virus remains a global threat and disease control strongly improved - Recent avian influenza outbreaks in 15 countries demonstrate that the H5N1 virus remains a global threat and requires close monitoring and strong control efforts, FAO said today. S...

22 Jan 08

Building a sustainable future for coastal communities from the bottom up - Youth from tsunami-affected fishing villages of four districts of the west coast in Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam (NAD) Province in Indonesia will be trained as "community motivato...

11 Dec 07

Mbabane, Swaziland – FAO agricultural fairs help thousands of poor farm families in southern Africa. FAO has distributed over 1 000 tonnes of seeds, as well as fertilizer and tools, to more than 110 000 poor farmers in three southern African countr...

19 Oct 07

Mosala, Lesotho - Julius Ncheche has seen many things in his 68 years, but he can’t remember such a terrible drought as the one which blighted Lesotho’s most recent harvest. The drought was so severe that his government declared a state of emerge...