News archive 2016

“A world without pollinators would be a world without food diversity – and in the long run, without food security,” FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva said today during a visit to Slovenia that will culminate Saturday at the national beekeepers’ festival.

What we eat matters not just for our health, but for the planet, too. Yet only a handful of pioneering governments have issued guidelines promoting “win-win” diets that can help tackle two of the most urgent challenges of our time: securing good nutrition for all and addressing climate change.

Illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) fishing is about to become much more difficult thanks to the imminent entry into force of the Port State Measures Agreement (PSMA), a ground-breaking international accord championed by FAO.

Twenty-five countries from the Near East and North Africa have stressed the importance of peace for food security as they reaffirmed their commitment to fighting hunger in all its forms.

The European Union (EU) and FAO have agreed to step up joint efforts to support tropical timber producing countries in curbing illegal logging, improving forest governance and promoting the trade of legally sourced timber.

Conflicts are impeding the fight against hunger in the Near East region, where growing food insecurity is also compounded by rising water scarcity and a challenging natural resource situation exacerbated by climate change, according to a speech by FAO Director-General Graziano da Silva.

Peace is impossible without food security, and there will be no food security without peace: this was the shared message of a group of Nobel laureates who have joined forces with FAO to tackle the twin problems of hunger and violence through a new alliance launched in Rome today.

FAO and WHO have released new guidelines aimed at reducing the damage done by highly hazardous pesticides that pose especially high toxic risks to human health and the environment.

FAO’s Regional Conference for the Near East has opened with agriculture ministers and senior officials as well as representatives from civil society organizations and the private sector gathering at the agency’s headquarters to chart out a roadmap for future work on shared food security challenges.

Global prices of key staple food commodities rose in April, marking its third consecutive increase after four years of decline. The FAO Food Price Index averaged 151.8 points in April. That is about 10 percent below its year-ago level – and more than a third off its 2011 highs - but up 0.7 percent from March.