The Serbian Grain Association hosted a round-table discussion yesterday at Global Grain Geneva to promote...
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
Wheat has a long history in Tajikistan; it has been grown here for more than a thousand years. The crop plays a crucial role in people’s well-being, particularly in rural areas.
With a workshop today in Dushanbe, a successful effort to improve small-scale farmers’ access to high-quality seeds concludes. It was implemented by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and funded by Austria. This project, launched in 2012, was supported by the Ministry of Agriculture and the Seed Association of Tajikistan.
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.