News archive 2019

FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva in an opening address today to the organization's executive, the Council, has stressed that FAO will focus over the next two years on promoting nutrition-sensitive food systems and innovation in agriculture.

To facilitate adoption of classic biological control, FAO has published a guide that distills information in a clear and concise way to help forest managers in developing countries implement it successfully.

The FAO Food Price Index held broadly stable in March. FAO also released new figures on the world’s cereal production and inventory levels, reflecting major upward adjustments made on the back of China’s 2017 agricultural census.

Scaling up innovation, policies and investments in the NENA's water sector is vital “to prevent water scarcity from setting us back in our ambitious vision of eradicating all forms of malnutrition, sustaining peace and leaving no one behind”, FAO Director-General said at the Land and Water Days in Cairo today.

The body charged with keeping plant pests and diseases at bay and trade in plants safe adopted new international measures to prevent pests from crossing borders and spreading. The standards, including protocols to block highly invasive pests such as Xylella fastidiosa and the oriental fruit fly, were approved during the Commission on Phytosanitary Measures’ (CPM) annual meeting this week.

The agreement, signed in Brussels on the side-lines of the high-level event on Food and Agriculture in Times of Crises, marks the beginning of a formal collaboration in the areas of migration and rural development, with a focus on diaspora-related issues and agribusiness.

The Global Report on Food Crises 2019 presented today jointly by the European Union, FAO, and the UN World Food Programme (WFP) finds that around 113 million people in 53 countries experienced acute food insecurity in 2018, compared to 124 million in 2017.

"Access to clean water and sanitation is essential for life, and it is the basis for maintaining a healthy life and helping millions of people out of poverty and hunger," Graziano da Silva wrote in a letter to the pontiff on 1 April.

“When the floodwaters recede, it will be crucial that FAO get in fast”, said Olman Serrano, FAO’s Representative in Mozambique and coordinator of the Organization’s response to Tropical Cyclone Idai.

The latest numbers on how many people are facing acute hunger worldwide will be revealed on Tuesday, 2 April 2019, in Brussels at the high-level launch of this year’s edition of the Global Report on Food Crises.