News archive 2017

The grant funds for the three-year "Smallholder Agricultural Production Restoration and Enhancement Project (SAPREP)" come from the World Bank's Global Agriculture Food Security Program (GAFSP).

FAO and the EU have agreed to work more closely together to halve per capita food waste by 2030 as well as intensify their cooperation on tackling the spread of antimicrobial resistance on farms and in food systems.

World Rabies Day marks the announcement of the biggest global anti-rabies initiative, as the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO), and the Global Alliance for Rabies Control (GARC) reveal an ambitious initiative to end human deaths from dog-transmitted rabies by 2030.

FAO has called for broader cattle vaccination to keep lumpy skin disease at bay in Eastern Europe and the Balkans, especially in areas where the risk is the highest. In a position paper published today, FAO warned that even countries that have not been affected by lumpy skin disease so far but are considered at risk need to carry out risk-based vaccination to avert the spread of the disease, which can have devastating consequences for farmers, particularly smallholders.

Robust harvests in Latin America and rebounding agricultural conditions in Southern Africa are on course to improve food supply conditions, but regional droughts and ongoing civil conflicts are blocking progress towards hunger reduction, according to FAO's Crop Prospects and Food Situation report.

The world needs to stave off the risk of having less efficient medicines to treat deadly infections due to the fact that more bacteria are becoming immune to antimicrobials. But this challenge posed by AMR is also "an opportunity to unite health, agriculture and environmental concerns in collaborative global action," Semedo said citing FAO's experience in Cambodia.

"Investing in measures to prevent food loss and food waste also means making investments in pro-poor policies as it promotes sustainable food systems for a zero hunger world," Graziano da Silva said.

September 2017, New York – Farming and rural non-farm-based activities still have untapped potential to generate employment opportunities for Africa’s rising youth population, FAO stressed today at a high level forum - Harnessing Skills for Rural Transformation and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals - held at the margins of the United Nations General Assembly.

FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva and Paul Polman, CEO of Unilever, signed an agreement today to scale up a set of partnerships stretching from Argentina to Bangladesh.

he principals of the two organizations, Houlin Zhao (ITU) and José Graziano da Silva (FAO), signed today a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that seeks to facilitate the development of e-Agriculture policies and regulations as well as ICT-centric innovation clusters that strengthen national and regional agricultural competitiveness.