News archive 2013

Madagascar is in the grips of a largely uncontrolled locust plague and risks a serious food crisis. A large-scale emergency control campaign urgently requires a minimum of $22 million in funding.

FAO Members have approved FAO’s Programme of Work and Budget for 2014-2015. The vote, at the end of FAO's 38th governing Conference, was hailed by Director-General José Graziano da Silva as "a clear sign of commitment to this Organization and its goals".

Poor women and youth in marginalized areas of Kenya and South Sudan will gain improved access to markets for their agricultural produce, under a new project agreement. The $1.9 million project falls under a broader FAO-Italy programme of food security through commercialization of agriculture, in Eastern Africa, West Africa, Central America and the Caribbean.

Pope Francis lauded participants in the 38th FAO Conference for working together against hunger but urged countries to "move beyond indifference" in policies that exclude the most vulnerable and exacerbate hunger and poverty in the world.

Angola announced it will give $10 million to the new Africa Solidarity Trust Fund administered by FAO, to be invested in promoting food security in Africa. The announcement, made by Afonso Pedro Canga, Minister of Agriculture and Development of Angola, came at the official launch of the fund.

The 2013 edition of FAO’s Statistical Yearbook sheds new light on agriculture’s contribution to global warming, trends in hunger and malnutrition and the state of the natural resource base upon which world food production depends.

During a high-level side event at the FAO Conference, the UN, donors and least developed countries say these nations need an infusion of investments to finally spark progress in cutting hunger

The European Union (EU), FAO and the Government of Zambia launched a four-year, €11 million programme to increase crop production and productivity of over 300 000 small-scale farmers by promoting practices based on conservation agriculture.

FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva has called on FAO’s Conference to approve a Programme of Work and Budget that sharpens the focus of the Organization’s actions to improve the assistance it gives to Member Countries so that they can reach their food security and agriculture goals.

FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva formally recognized 38 countries for reducing hunger by half well ahead of international targets for the year 2015.