This update includes announcements of FAO's upcoming events on climate change, information on the outcomes of various international meetings, such as a workshop on measuring, reporting and verification of carbon organized by the UN-REDD at FAO and other conferences held with FAO's participation. Special attention is given to the latest activities on disaster risk management in countries such as Jamaica. This edition also focuses on the threats and opportunities climate changes poses to fisheries and aquaculture.

This paper explores potential synergies between food security, adaptation and climate

change mitigation from land-based agricultural practices in developing countries, which

could help to generate the multiple benefits needed to address the multiple demands placed

on agriculture. It indicates promising mitigation options with synergies, options that involve

trade-offs, possible options for required financing, and possible elements in designing

country implementation processes.

This book was developed to assist policy makers dealing with rural poverty, food

insecurity and education challenges confronting rural people. It seeks to address the

correlation between education, training, empowerment and food security, mainly

through a number of examples from all over the world. It is about strengthening the capacity

of rural people to achieve food security. The broad background is that studies leading to the formulation of the Millennium Development Goals in 2000 have shown the potential that poor people have to make their living if the right conditions are created. The challenge for the international community is to identify barriers and to create conditions for rural people to change and improve their situation. In this perspective, the way to reach food security is to strengthen the capacity of poor people. The concept of capacity is closely associated with notions such as empowerment. It is generally agreed that education in all its forms is one important pillar in such a strategy. The role of education is not only to impart knowledge and skills but also to contribute to the empowerment of people by improving their self-confidence, widen their frame of reference and give them the tools to participate in wider processes of social and economic change.

From 8 June to 8 July 2009, FAO held a moderated e-mail conference on "Learning from the past: Successes and failures with agricultural biotechnologies in developing countries over the last 20 years". It was organised to complement a series of five technical sector-specific documents (on biotechnologies in crops, forestry, livestock, fisheries/aquaculture and food processing/safety) that are being prepared as part of the build up to the FAO international technical conference on Agricultural Biotechnologies in Developing Countries(ABDC-10). The conference was very successful, enriched by the participants' descriptions and analyses of the experiences of the use of agricultural biotechnologies in their own countries worldwide. There were 834 subscribers and, of these, 83 people submitted at least one message. Of the 121 messages that were posted, about 25% each came from Asia and Africa, 20% from Latin America and the Caribbean, 15% from North America, 10% from Europe and 5% from Oceania. About 75% of messages came from people living in developing countries. All messages can be viewed.

A key benefit of bioenergy for transport and for stationary heat and electricity generation is its potential to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions relative to replaced fossil fuels. This reduction can be difficult to calculate, given the diverse and complex production and use systems for bioenergy and for the fossil fuels they replace. In order to facilitate emissions comparisons between different bioenergy production systems relative to fossil fuels, the Task Force on GHG Methodologies of the Global Bioenergy Partnership has produced a draft methodological framework intended to be appropriate for use in the lifecycle analysis (LCA) of bioenergy production and use. The framework is intended to provide a template for LCA that

is transparent and that can be applied to a wide range of bioenergy systems.