News archive 2017

The FAO Food Price Index averaged 175.8 points in November, down 0.5 percent from the previous month while still up 2.3 percent from a year earlier.

Efforts in South Sudan to fight Fall armyworm, an insect that destroys crops, have received a boost thanks to the Government of Japan’s decision to provide $3 million to support a project run by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) together with South Sudan’s Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security.

The Global Soil Organic Carbon Map, illustrating the amount of soil organic carbon stock in the first 30 cm of soil, reveals natural areas with high carbon storage that require its conservation, as well as those regions where there is the possibility for further sequestration.

The recent increase in the number of hungry people in the world “challenges all the work FAO has been doing in recent years,” FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva told member of the FAO Council today.

The countries of Europe and Central Asia have made good progress reducing the prevalence of undernourishment, but some 14.3 million women and men in the region are still not getting the food they need and malnutrition problems are on the rise, according to an FAO report published today.

Over 1,000 ex-fighters in the Central African Republic (CAR) have joined an FAO-supported UN initiative for disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration.

To spread knowledge of how to manage the cactus pear effectively, FAO and ICARDA launched Crop Ecology, Cultivation and Uses of Cactus Pear, a book with updated insights into the plant’s genetic resources, physiological traits, soil preferences and vulnerability to pests.

There is an urgent need to step up collective efforts to fight fast-spreading, cross-border animal and plant pests and diseases that could threaten global food security.

The revamped version of the Domestic Animal Diversity Information System (DAD-IS) includes new indicators to monitor the risk of extinction of breeds indicating those that are at risk and need urgent intervention.

The two institutions also stressed the importance of climate change mitigation and adaptation initiatives for agriculture as they marked 20 years of collaboration with a Memorandum of Understanding, signed today in London by EBRD President Sir Suma Chakrabarti and FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva.