Around a quarter of human-produced carbon-dioxide is absorbed by the ocean, causing it to acidify...
Regional Initiatives
As economic reforms in the 1990s shifted land ownership into the hands of private smallholders, family farmers became the predominant source of agricultural production in the region. To address the absence of well-developed institutional support, FAO is implementing a Regional Initiative on Empowering Smallholders and Family Farms for Improved Rural Livelihoods and Poverty Reduction.
While international trade policy is usually implemented at the border, adherence to food safety and quality standards concerns national food safety systems as well as food safety and quality control at the enterprise level. This means that a supportive policy environment for modern agrifood trade encompasses not only border policies, but also policies and institutions at the national and enterprise level.
Stories from the field
The first National Coordination Council on land degradation and desertification, with up to 100 experts from the Government of Ukraine, regional state administrations and international organizations, opened here last week. All the participants agreed on a joint approach to contain runaway land degradation, which has been threatening national food and water supplies in the country.
FAO provides financial support to the National Coordination Council and is the technical performer of the Global Environment Facility-sponsored project, which is titled “Integrated Natural Resources Management in Degraded Landscapes in the Forest-Steppe and Steppe Zones of Ukraine.”
Turkey is moving closer to having its Bursa black figs and Bursa peaches protected and promoted through geographical indications (GIs) – a move that could raise producers’ incomes and open up market opportunities.
Meeting for the second time, Kyrgyz stakeholders gathered this week in Bishkek to advance the country’s national criteria and indicator set for sustainable forest monitoring.
The exercise, carried out under a joint project of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) and FAO, is especially important today; Kyrgyzstan is currently in the process of adapting a national development strategy that also addresses environmental safety, climate change adaption, ecological sustainability and forests.