Viticulture, the science of growing grapes, dates back as far as 8 000 years in...
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
Counterfeit seeds cheat farmers of the high-quality, high-yielding crops they rely on to make a decent living. A new law – drafted with help from FAO legal experts and adopted recently by the Parliament of Georgia – protects the market from falsified seed materials.
Georgia’s new Seed Law is part of a comprehensive FAO programme begun in 2014, supporting the Ministry of Agriculture in establishing a fully functional seed certification system.
A modern national food safety system for Ukraine’s fishery products – in line with European Union requirements – is the overarching goal of a new FAO project launched here today.
The steppes of Turkey’s Anatolia region are ecologically important yet vulnerable ecosystems, covering nearly 40 percent of the country. Now a new FAO project is bringing into focus the steppes of Sanliurfa province – known for its rich biodiversity and well-preserved steppe ecosystems.