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Stagnating productivity growth of wheat, one of the two most important staple foods in Asia, threatens to create a food security crisis in the world’s most populous region, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) which co-hosted a major international conference on wheat that opened Thursday in Bangkok in collaboration with Asia-Pacific Association of Agricultural Research Institutions (APAARI). “Food security in this region depends largely on...

The renovation of the Thuan An port in Viet Nam’s Thua Thien Hue province will benefit fishers, traders and consumers in the province by improving - starting from today - the hygiene of fisheries products and enhancing the potential for more value-added marketing activities. The renovation is funded by the Regional Fisheries Livelihoods Programme (RFLP). Thuan An is the only fishing port among approximately 40 landing sites in Thua Thien Hue. Annually, approximately 7...

While mud crab farming based on collection from the wild has probably taken place for hundreds of years, farming of mud crabs is a relatively recent innovation, with most research and development taking place over the last few decades. A recent FAO publication showcases innovations on mud crab farming from researchers and farmers in key nations in the Asia-Pacific region where significant industry development and extension of technology have occurred...

Home to more than 60 percent of the world’s population, the Asia-Pacific region has about 65 percent of the world’s poor. In most of the countries, rural livelihoods could be improved by providing access to the right information at the right time by using mobile phone technologies. Mobile-based information services have been tried in many countries to deliver information services to agrarian communities. More people than ever before have access to mobile phones and many...

Today the Thai minister for agriculture and cooperatives and FAO signed a country programming framework for mutual cooperation and partnership to redress inequity and inclusive growth. Despite fast economic development over the past 50 years, Thailand faces serious socio-economic imbalances and uneven income and wealth distribution, which put the rural and agricultural segments of its society at a disadvantage. "For agriculture as a whole, farmers have been better off in terms of...

The FAO Director-General, José Graziano da Silva, visitedBangladesh from 18 to 20 March, in his first official visit to an Asian country. The Director-General met the Prime Minister Madam Sheikh Hasina and reassured her ofFAO’s increased support to Bangladesh, especially in achieving comprehensive food security,improving nutrition and food safety, and combating avian influenza. Graziano da Silva also met the Foreign Minister, Finance Minister, Agriculture Minister, andFood and Disaster Management Minister, and also...

Vowing to take a new approach to ending hunger in the face of soaring food prices and scarcer resources, the Director-General of the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) called for sustainable increases in agricultural production and fairer and more inclusive food and agricultural systems, during a regional conference in Hanoi on Thursday. Food prices, already persistently high and volatile, are forecast to rise even higher, resulting...

Policy makers meeting this week in Hanoi began debating Tuesday a paradigm shift to producing food that they believe can prevent a looming crisis that could cripple the region’s development and the turn the Asian Century into an era of hunger and undernourishment. “We have to move beyond the Green Revolution to an Evergreen Revolution, by adopting an approach called Save and Grow,” said Hiroyuki Konuma, regional assistant director-general of the...

With food prices twice as high as a decade ago, feeding nearly 600 million people suffering from hunger and malnutrition in the Asia-Pacific region is becoming more difficult, according to the regional representative of the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, which opened a major regional conference in Hanoi today. “Eradicating hunger has become more complex and challenging in this region,’’ Hiroyuki Konuma, Assistant Director-General and Regional Representative of...