News archive 2015

FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva urged young people to play their part in ending world hunger, saying that their leadership is crucial to achieving this goal by 2030.

Food security, nutrition and sustainable agriculture are key to achieving the entire set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva has told world leaders in a plenary address at United Nations headquarters.

Agriculture and rural development need a major boost if we want to achieve the 2030 globally-agreed goals of eradicating hunger and extreme poverty, a challenge made more complex by climate change, FAO Director-General Graziano da Silva, said.

FAO, China and Uganda have signed a two year agreement worth almost $2.5 million to support small-scale farmers in Uganda in boosting their production, including through sustainable technologies. The agreement marks the second phase of a partnership initially established in 2012 to make training and technical advice available to the Ugandan agriculture sector.

"Rural development and food security are central to the global response to the refugee crisis. War causes hunger and hunger too, kills and forces people from their homes," the FAO Director-General said.

Prolonged dry weather associated with the El Niño phenomenon has severely reduced this year’s cereal outputs in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua, putting a large numbers of farmers in need of agricultural assistance as the subregion tries to recover amidst ongoing dryness, FAO said today.

The largest gathering on forests this decade set out its vision of how forests and forestry should look in 2050, adopting the Durban Declaration after a week of debate. The vision calls for the forests of the future to be “fundamental” for food security and improved livelihoods.

The index averaged 155.7 points in August 2015, down 5.2 percent from July, the steepest monthly drop since December 2008, with virtually all major food commodities registering marked dips.

The number of people in Afghanistan resorting to selling land or turning to friends or family for help because of food insecurity has doubled in the last year, says a new a joint report by UN and partner agencies.

Ugandan forestry activist Gertrude Kabusimbi Kenyangi has been awarded the 2015 Wangari Maathai ‘Forest Champions’ Award in recognition of her efforts to promote the conservation and sustainable use of forest resources in Uganda.