News archive 2019

FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva urged cities around the world today to redouble their efforts to promote healthier and more sustainable urban diets and food systems to tackle the increasing levels of overweight and obesity.

The world is off track to meet most of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets linked to hunger, food security and nutrition, according to a FAO report released today.

FAO and the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP) have joined forces to boost food and nutrition security in their territories through strengthened sustainable family farming and agroecology development.

Family farmers need enabling public policies and legal frameworks that will “allow them to adapt and flourish in today’s changing environment” and maximize their contribution to sustainable development, FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva said on Tuesday.

Obesity affecting populations of the Small Island Developing States (SIDS) is a health emergency and these nations need to take ownership of measures to address this worrying trend’s underlying causes, said FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva today.

An estimated 820 million people did not have enough to eat in 2018, up from 811 million in the previous year. This underscores the immense challenge of achieving Zero Hunger by 2030, says a new edition of the annual The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report released today.

Global demand for agricultural products is projected to grow by 15 percent over the coming decade, while productivity growth is expected to keep inflation-adjusted prices of the major agricultural commodities to remain at or below current levels, according to the OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook.

The United Nations food standards body Codex Alimentarius Commission is meeting in Geneva from 08 to 12 July 2019 to adopt food safety and quality standards.

The Green Climate Fund (GCF) has provided FAO with a grant of nearly $35 million for this work, while the provincial governments of Punjab and Sindh have committed an additional $12.7 million in co-financing to be managed by FAO.

The FAO Food Price Index, which tracks monthly changes in the international prices of commonly traded food commodities, averaged 173 points in June, down 0.3 percent from May.