News archive 2018

FAO and AgriCord, a global alliance of agri-agencies mandated by farmers’ organizations, are joining efforts to facilitate the engagement of family and smallholder farmers in decision making and policy dialogue, increase their institutional and organizational capacities and improve their access to markets and finance.

More than 7 million people in South Sudan – almost two-thirds of the population – could become severely food insecure in the coming months without sustained humanitarian assistance and access, three United Nations agencies warned today.

The international community needs to intervene more swiftly in humanitarian crises in ways that are also designed to support affected farmers, pastoralists, fishers and other food producers, FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva has told an international conference in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

FAO's new Voluntary Guidelines for the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Crop Wild Relatives and Wild Food Plants outline how to craft technical rules and shepherd them into implementation and will help governments meet their international commitments.

Speaking at the FAO regional conference for Africa, the Organization's Director-General José Graziano da Silva has expressed optimism that Zero Hunger remains attainable, but that doing so will require efforts to help communities better prepare and cope with weather-related shocks and conflict.

"Countries need to promote a rural and structural transformation that fosters synergies between farm and non-farm activities and that reinforces" the linkages between rural areas and cities, Graziano da Silva said.

Maintaining productive, diverse and healthy forests is crucial for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals but this can only be accomplished through political will and concerted action across sectors, stakeholders and institutions at all levels, said the international conference on halting deforestation today.

The FAO-hosted International Conference on Halting Deforestation organised by the Collaborative Partnership on Forests aims to promote dialogue across sectors and stakeholder groups on how to collectively achieve the globally agreed targets of halting deforestation and increasing forest cover.

Faced with the infestation of millions of hectares of maize, most in the hands of smallholder farmers, and the relentless spread of Fall Armyworm (FAW) across most of Africa, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) launched today a comprehensive guide on the integrated pest management of the FAW on maize.

The new partnerships will focus on a number of areas, particularly in developing countries, including agroecology, sustainable natural resources management in the context of climate change and agriculture innovation for family farmers.