Stakeholders from across Turkmenistan gathered in Ashgabat on 17 April 2025 for a consultation focused on accelerating the country's access to climate finance by identifying crucial climate-resilient technologies and boosting private-sector engagement in climate action. The consultation was part of the Green Climate Fund (GCF) Readiness project Improving the Capacity of Turkmenistan to Access Climate Finance through Capacity Building and Strategic Frameworks.

Strong, sustainable forest governance, underpinned by technical data, digital technologies, and institutional capacity are the necessary foundation to ensure the economic benefits of the forest sector to rural livelihoods and to mitigate climate change impacts. As part of the European Union and Sweden-funded programme to support sustainable and multipurpose forest management, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) conducted a targeted training to enhance the capacities of Kosovan officials for assessing and monitoring the economic aspects of the forestry sector. 

Just a few days before Stop Food Waste Day on 30 April, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has successfully delivered the first regional edition of a virtual learning course on tackling food loss and waste (FLW). Developed in collaboration with the International Food Waste Coalition (now part of the Waste and Resources Action Programme Europe) and hosted on FAO’s Virtual Learning Center, the course offered a hands-on, practical training experience tailored for key actors in the region’s agrifood value chains and systems.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has released a pivotal report titled Promoting bioeconomy through agriculture practice in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. This publication, available in both English and Russian, sheds light on the transformative potential of a sustainable and circular bioeconomy in tackling environmental, social and economic challenges within the agrifood sector. As described in the report, a circular bioeconomy is one that works to eliminate waste and pollution, circulate products and materials at their highest value, and regenerate nature.

Just a few years ago, registering of land or changes in property rights, such as an inheritance or a purchase, was a time-consuming and often costly process in Serbia. It would take months to register a transaction. Data were fragmented, unreliable and not easily accessible, often available only in analogue archives. The process of obtaining the documents to prove someone’s land rights usually required several visits to the cadastre offices, which could be in another village.

Mountain regions especially in the world’s developing countries face growing pressure from climate change, biodiversity loss and land degradation, yet mountain communities have great potential for climate-resilient development and work to upgrade mountain products sectors such as organic food, textiles and tourism services is already paying off, QU Dongyu, Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) said here today.   

National food control systems, in line with internationally recognized food safety and quality standards, are a cornerstone of ensuring the safety and quality of the food we put on our tables. Recognizing this priority, the Republic of Belarus has requested support from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) to facilitate a self-assessment by using the Food Control System Assessment Tool (FCSAT), developed by FAO and the World Health Organization (WHO).

The AgriTech Observatory, an initiative of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) for countries in Europe and Central Asia, has been officially recognized as a Digital Public Good (DPG) by the Digital Public Goods Alliance—a multi-stakeholder initiative endorsed by the United Nations to promote open-source technologies that accelerate progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The war in Ukraine continues inflicting pressure on the agricultural sector, making it increasingly difficult for farmers and rural families to continue food production and sustain their livelihoods. In response, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has launched a two-year Emergency and Early Recovery Response Plan (EERRP) 2025–2026, designed to support over half a million vulnerable people in restoring agricultural production, protecting livelihoods and building long-term resilience. 

Today is Earth Day, a time to reflect on and to take local actions to safeguard the land and the environments that sustain all life. We each play a part and all efforts for sustainability are worthwhile. In Adaköy, a village in the Yeniçağa district of Bolu, Kamil Yıldız farms in the quiet embrace of nature. Kamil leases idle fields in the village, cultivating a total of 300 decares of land. To sustain the family farm, he grows wheat, barley, oats, alfalfa, forage peas and silage maize. Most of these crops are used as animal feed, except for wheat, which he sells.

Within its ongoing efforts to strengthen Tajikistan's agricultural sector, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), has successfully completed a Technical Cooperation Programme Facility project on cooperative development and to strengthen rural institutions under the national Agrarian Reform Programme. The FAO project helped improve the working environment of cooperatives and strengthened the capacity of national authorities to support the development of cooperatives and rural institutions. On a local level, the project supported four agricultural cooperatives.

In 2022, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) began supporting the Ministry of Agriculture of Turkmenistan and its Land Resources Service in modernizing and digitalizing the country’s land cadastre through the technical cooperation project “Support to the establishment of a Digital Land Cadastre”. This project is now concluding. A meeting was held 9 April in Ashgabat to mark the finalization of the project, recap the achievements and look to future actions to continue improving the digital cadastre system.

Living amidst grapevines that have been around since the time of his ancestors, it is no wonder Givi Chubinidze became convinced to follow in their footsteps. Here in the green valleys of Georgia’s Imereti region, bordered by the Likhi mountain range, endemic blue and purple grape varieties, such as tsitska, krakhuna and adanasuri, have been a part of the local landscape and cultural heritage for centuries.

The One Health approach recognizes the interconnections between people and ecosystems and aims to sustainably balance the health of people, plants, animals and the environment. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is strongly committed to this integrated, unifying approach. This was the core message, delivered by FAO Assistant Director-General and Regional Representative for Europe and Central Asia Viorel Gutu at a high-level meeting of the Regional One Health Coordination Mechanism today in Copenhagen when the chairmanship of the Mechanism was handed over from the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) to FAO, ensuring continued collaboration on One Health priorities in the region.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is supporting Turkmenistan’s efforts in enhancing these two priority areas, within the framework of two projects, implemented with the FAO Technical Cooperation Programme (TCP), “Strengthening technological innovation and research capacities for sustainable and climate-resilient cotton production” and “Support for the improvement of pest management capacities for cereal crops”. The implementation of the project started after FAO successfully held a joint inception workshop for the two projects in March, in Ashgabat, bringing together key actors to take initial steps in the work of the projects.

Inland capture fisheries play a vital role in supporting households, economies and cultures across Europe, through both commercial and recreational fishing. According to capture and landing statistics reported to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the total production from inland capture fisheries in Europe reached 167 187 tonnes in 2021, accounting for 1.5 percent of total global production, making this sector highly important for the region. Yet, climate change poses several challenges to the survival of fish species across Europe. It creates significant and often unpredictable impacts on inland fisheries, and it can be an exacerbating factor for other stressors. Foreseeably, this will lead to shifts in freshwater habitats which are mainly expected to be unfavourable for inland fisheries.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is collaborating with the Scuola Politecnica di Design, the first school for design disciplines in Italy, founded in Milan in 1954. Following an established dialogue, this cooperation aims to offer both online and offline classes focused on FAO's critical role in global food security and the enhancement of quality of life through innovative agrifood systems.

In the Khatlon region of Tajikistan, farming of cotton, wheat and other crops has long been the backbone of rural livelihoods. Safarmad Gadoev, a farmer from the city of Kulob, was one of many who relied on the production of these crops to support his family. But the challenges of cotton and wheat farming—rising production costs, fluctuating market prices, water scarcity, and the impacts of climate change—made it difficult for him to earn a stable income. 

If the people of Europe and Central Asia are to have food on their plates, they must have water security. Moreover, water security is a catalyst for transforming the food and agriculture sectors of the region to become more efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable. Therefore, sustainable water management practices are a prerequisite for farmers’ resilience against climate challenges and, thus, for safeguarding food security. This is the central message of the 2024 Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition report, released today.

A project in Bosnia and Herzegovina, implemented by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in 2022, addressing land degradation neutrality (LDN) issues, is progressing to foster a coherent policy environment and track progress towards achieving the national LDN targets. Land abandonment in the last 25 years has adversely affected 1.2 million rural people.