FAO Land Resources - Land & Water Bulletins

The waste of a staggering 1.3 billion tonnes of food per year is not only causing major economic losses but also wreaking significant harm on the natural resources that humanity relies upon to feed itself

This is the first study to analyze the impacts of global food wastage from an environmental perspective, looking specifically at its consequences for the climate, water and land use, and biodiversity. Among its key findings: Each year, food that is produced but not eaten guzzles up a volume of water equivalent to the annual flow of Russia's Volga River and is responsible for adding 3.3 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases to the planet's atmosphere.

L’objectif du présent document est de mieux définir certaines caractéristiques des ressources humaines qui s’avèrent indispensables si l’on veut «contribuer» au processus de convergence progressive et de collaboration entre les divers acteurs.

FAO Natural Resources Management and Environment Department has started a process to gather information on landscape/territorial approaches which are planned, being implemented or have been finalized to identify opportunities to improve synergies and collaborate more effectively to strengthen support to member countries and partners in this regard. As part of this process a pilot survey was undertaken in February 2013. A summary of the results from the pilot survey is available for your reference. This further survey is to collect further information on the diverse landscape/territorial initiatives to obtain a more complete representation of the suite of work under-taken and, thereby, to effectively inform and facilitate this harmonization and outreach process. We welcome an active response from relevant FAO technical/officers, project staff and your direct partners (The survey closes July 31).

Drought affects more people than any other type of natural disaster, and it is also the costliest. Droughts are certainly not new, but their increasing frequency and severity throughout the world over the past decades has heightened impacts and lifted their dimension from local to global. The resulting massive famines and migration, conflicts and unrest, and food price hikes spell well beyond drought affected areas to become global concerns. These shifts mean that we have to approach drought in a new way.In March 2013, the first-ever High-Level Meeting on National Drought Policy was held in Geneva, Switzerland, to discuss what is needed in this new environment and how scientists, experts, and policy makers can work together to strengthen the political will and build technical and managerial capacities for establishing national drought policies.

Imagine a food basket filled with cereals from a Saharan oasis, potatoes from 4 000 metres up the Peruvian Andes or from a remote Chilean archipelago, and rice from steep terraced hillsides in China or the Philippines. All these foods come from Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems(GIAHS). These are food systems that have evolved over millennia in harsh and remote landscapes – and in extreme climates – thanks to the knowledge of indigenous people. FAO has identified some 200 of these systems around the world, hailing them for their contributions over the millennia and supporting them to make sure this knowledge is passed on to future generations.

In the first decade of this century, the developing world dealt with an unprecedented level of large-scale land acquisition by international speculators and global agribusinesses, mainly in Africa. Other, related issues included corruption in natural resource administration, conflicting claims over natural resources, and lack of recognition of customary tenure systems. This focused global attention on the need for more responsible governance of tenure. It was against this backdrop that more than a thousand experts from governments, academia, civil society organizations and the private sector, representing 133 countries, participated in a series of consultations, workshops, drafting committees and intergovernmental negotiations led by FAO and the Committee on World Food Security. These resulted in a document considered a landmark achievement – the Voluntary Guidelines.

On 24 April 2013 at the 146th FAO Council, FAO member Countries endorsed the request from the Kingdom of Thailand in the framework of the Global Soil Partnership for the proclamation of the International Year of Soils 2015. The Year will serve as a platform for raising awareness on the importance of sustainable soil management as the basis for food systems, fuel and fibre production, essential ecosystem functions and better adaptation to climate change for present and future generations.