FAO and the Regional Centre for Forestry and Rural Development (REFORD) in North Macedonia hosted the annual international meeting of the Forest Invasive Species Network for Europe and Central Asia (REUFIS) from 4 to 6 June 2024 in Skopje, North Macedonia. The primary focus of this year’s meeting was the role of invasive species in urban forest planning. During this three-day event, participants explored the relationship between invasive species and urban forestry.

Given the importance of Ukraine to global food production, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) continues to support the country in its efforts to maintain food security, said FAO Regional Programme Leader for Europe and Central Asia Raimund Jehle at the Ukraine Recovery Conference yesterday in Berlin. FAO’s 2024 Emergency Response Plan is carried out jointly with the Ukrainian Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food and national and international partners, including the European Union.

Disease outbreaks severely constrain aquaculture development, and the processes for controlling diseases and managing health are different in aquaculture than in the terrestrial livestock sector, primarily due to the fluid environment. For this reason, Kyrgyzstan, with support from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), has begun to develop a national action plan for the control of fish diseases. The project supports fish farms through the implementation of best practices in fish health management, biosafety on fish farms and the planning of production activities. This can help improve product quality and increase production volumes.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) join forces each year to raise awareness about these issues and inspire action across all sectors of the food chain, from farm to fork. This year’s theme, “Food safety: prepare for the unexpected”, explores the ways in which we all can prepare for unexpected food safety incidents, from minor events to major international crises. To raise awareness on proper food safety and management, a workshop was held in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, on World Food Safety Day to help consumers, producers and officials focus on an issue often taken for granted.

Agriculture ministers from the five Central Asian countries came together at a virtual meeting today to discuss and share examples of sustainable locust management. Facilitated by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the meeting was the eighth annual gathering of the ministers, with Kazakhstan serving as this year’s host. The goal of the meeting was to strengthen cross-border and long-term regional cooperation and to share experience, knowledge and lessons learned from locust campaigns. The meeting also covered advanced approaches to improving country capacities and supporting a preventive approach for better locust management and the reduction of risks related to locust outbreaks.

Facilitated by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the fifteenth international LANDNET workshop, starting today in Middelburg in the Kingdom of the Netherlands, is bringing together about 100 experts from roughly 30 countries to share their experiences on land consolidation. Specifically, the experts will discuss how multipurpose land consolidation can contribute to larger goals such as climate change adaptation and mitigation, nature restoration, and improved biodiversity and environmental conditions.

According to a recent report published by the Climate Policy Initiative, a mere 4 percent of global climate finance reached agrifood systems between 2019 and 2020. This falls drastically short of what's needed and despite the crucial role of agrifood systems in climate change mitigation and adaptation. To achieve the ambitious goals outlined in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement to effectively transform agrifood systems for climate action, experts estimate that mobilizing about USD 680 billion annually until 2030 is necessary. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is working to help address the financing gap through the multi-stakeholder Food and Agriculture for Sustainable Transformation Partnership (FAST Partnership). 

As part of an ongoing pesticide management and disposal project from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Global Environment Facility (GEF) in Central Asia and Türkiye, two international events were held in Almaty, Kazakhstan. To discuss the latest trends and explore the ways digital technologies can ameliorate the management of pests and pesticides in Central Asia, a workshop on emerging green technologies for pest and pesticide management on 15 April was conducted.

In Ukraine, access to quality grain production estimates has worsened due to the ongoing war. In response, a three-day technical meeting at FAO on 11-13 March examined if remote-sensing technologies could help complement and strengthen its national data-gathering capacity. The meeting allowed to craft a concrete plan, set deadlines, and pinpoint winter cereals, maize, and sunflower seed as key focus for further joint work. 

African swine fever (ASF) is a very serious animal disease that may kill up to 100 percent of infected animals, both domestic pigs and wild boar of all breeds and ages and for which, currently, there is no commercially available vaccine or treatment. It poses significant economic, livelihood and biodiversity threats to the region's pig sector and wild populations. As part of its work to combat African swine fever in the region, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is building capacity to improve ASF management by teaching outbreak investigation and basic epidemiology to participants from Western Balkans in a four-day workshop in Sarajevo from 21 to 24 May.