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A series of United Nations meetings were hosted this week by FAO’s Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia, in Budapest, Hungary. The full line-up of meetings follows: 10-11 December Regional Peer Support Group for UN Development Assistance Framework The inter-agency Peer Support Group is made up of United Nations staff...

Food engineers, medical doctors, nutritionists, toxicologists, veterinarians, statisticians and other specialists upgraded their knowledge of food safety risk assessment at a training workshop last week in Ankara, Turkey. The workshop was the third in a series, part of an FAO project to enhance national expert capacities for evidence-based decision making in...

Family farmer Asylkan Amanova comes from the remote Zhanbulak village in Kyrgyzstan’s Naryn province, but her glowing smile will shine around the world today as the face of International Mountain Day 2014. Despite unforgiving conditions for agriculture in the Kyrgyz mountain region, Asylkan defied the odds and built a successful family...

Zapping through the TV channels during prime time, viewers in Turkey this month are sure to encounter an unusual ad campaign that honours family farmers. The ads combine dazzling rural images with a nostalgic Turkish song and the Twitter hashtag #senbirakipgitmediye. They are part of a major campaign launched in late...

FAO will soon establish an office in the Republic of Albania, under the terms of an agreement signed here today. The new Host Country Agreement was signed by FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva and Edmond Panariti, Albania’s Minister for Agriculture, Rural Development and Water Management. “This is a very positive development...

“Conservation Agriculture” is now on track to become the national standard for farming in Turkey. Farmers, policy makers, technical experts and nongovernmental organizations agree on the need to scale up use of this innovative approach, which helps increase crop yields while simultaneously protecting the environment. The environmental and economic consequences of many...

Despite political upheaval in the country, Ukraine’s grain sector is forging ahead as it continues to generate revenue in difficult economic conditions. In 2013 alone, Ukraine harvested approximately 63 million tons of grain, ranking the country among the strongest agricultural producers in the world. Even so, the Ukrainian grain industry, international...

A new bird flu strain detected in Europe which is similar to strains reported to be circulating in 2014 in Asia poses a significant threat to the poultry sector, especially in low-resourced countries situated along the Black Sea and East Atlantic migratory routes of wild birds, FAO and the World...

Food safety, animal health and livestock production, natural resources management, pasture management, fisheries and aquaculture, organic food production, and technologies for agricultural statistics are among the priorities covered in an agreement signed here today between Kazakhstan and FAO. Deputy Minister for Agriculture Gulmira Isayeva signed the “FAO Country Programming Framework for...

FAO Food Safety and Consumer Protection Officer Eleonora Dupouy talks about this week’s Second International Conference on Nutrition (ICN2) and why balanced nutrition is rapidly replacing undernutrition as the next big challenge facing Europe and Central Asia. You will travel to Rome this week for ICN2. What’s in store? At a...