Consumers want food to be not only accessible, tasty, and nourishing, but primarily safe and...
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.
The impact of climate change can already be felt on food production systems in the region, posing considerable challenges for agricultural production and food security. FAO is helping countries to manage their natural resources sustainably, while also coping with climate change and reducing the risk of disasters affecting agriculture, forestry and fisheries.
Stories from the field
African swine fever is one of the major animal health challenges worldwide, as demonstrated by recent developments in China and the European Union, where recent outbreaks have prompted health officials to take action.
The disease first entered Europe through Georgia, back in 2007, in an unprecedented epidemic that would gradually spread from Africa throughout the Caucasus, the Russian Federation, Eastern and Central Europe, and more recently Western Europe (Belgium) and China.
The absence of an effective control strategy stems in part from the absence of a vaccine or treatment, but mostly from the difficulty of controlling the disease’s spread through pigs in low biosecurity systems – such as small commercial farms or backyards where families keep pigs at home, mostly for personal consumption and extra income.
Moldovan authorities and FAO have successfully implemented a four-year project to increase drought resilience amongst small-scale farmers by helping them adopt modern irrigation technologies and best practices.
At the closing event, held today in Chisinau, FAO and the minister of Agriculture, Rural Development and Environment brought together a variegated set of participants – including representatives from the ministry, extension agencies, and farmers’ organizations – to present the project’s specific achievements.
A logistics centre was opened today in northern Kyrgyzstan’s Kemin district to aid in supplying local schools with fresh agricultural produce. An initiative of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the centre should improve the quality of school meals and secure a sustainable market for local producers.
The centre will serve as a centralized procurement, storage, and quality control facility and will deliver agricultural products to schools and other social institutions throughout the district.