Global Forum on Food Security and Nutrition (FSN Forum)

FAO and partners have co-organized a series of Innovation Zoominars addressing the role of innovation and digital technologies in increasing resilience of smallholders to emerging disruptive impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on rural livelihoods.

This Zoominar session will be part of ITU-UNESCO Regional Digital Inclusion Week for the Arab States, focusing on challenges facing the innovation processes in the agriculture sector with regards to governance and public policy aspects. The session will involve all partners and government representatives from the NENA Region and will emphasize on accelerating the development of innovation and digital agriculture in agri-food systems in the countries.

The discussion will examine the role that FAO and partners could play in facilitating the implementation and scalability of such innovations in the NENA region and guiding governments towards a robust policy plan of action to avoid the worst consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on the agriculture sector and food security.

Join the Zoominar on Thursday, 12 November 2020 at 13:00 – 15:00 (UTC+2).

You can access the full agenda and further details of the Zoominar here.

Please find the registration link here.

FAO’s Technologies and Practices for Small Agricultural Producers (TECA) Platform has released an “Open call for technologies and practices” for submissions on sharing practices and technologies that can help smallholder farmers and producers to overcome current challenges. You are invited to submit practices and technologies that have been successfully implemented on the ground, brought positive results and are easily replicable to similar areas. This will be an opportunity to document your practices in a non-technical language and make them available to farmers worldwide.

Each practice/technology will be recorded in a standard format, using clear language and descriptive visuals to provide detailed specifications for easy implementation. The TECA practices and technologies cover a wide range of regions and countries and are available in different languages (English, French, Spanish and Portuguese) to reach a wider audience. The practice and technologies the calls can include but are not limited to the following themes:

• Agricultural Mechanization;
• Beekeeping;
• Capacity Development;
• Climate Change Adaptation and Disaster Risk Reduction;
• Crop Production;
• Fisheries and Aquaculture;
• Forestry
• Livestock Production
• Natural Management
• Nutrition for Better Life;
• Post-Harvest and Marketing.

All information is available here: http://www.fao.org/teca/open-call/en/

The deadline is 30 July 2020.

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the University of Évora present the

SALSA Project Final Conference

Can small farms and food businesses improve people’s access to more and better food in our globalized world?

Thursday, 25 June 2020 from 10:00 to 11:00 and from 11:30 to 13:00 (CET)

Please register to follow the virtual event through the Zoom conferencing platform.

The webcast will be streamed live on YouTube in English.

For more information click here.

The Research and Extension Unit (AGDR) of FAO participates in SALSA – Small Farms, Small Food Businesses and Sustainable Food Security, an EU-funded research project of the Horizon2020 program which run from April 2016 to July 2020 with the aim to provide a better understanding of the role of small farms and small food businesses in meeting the sustainable food and nutrition security (FNS) challenge.

SALSA – Small Farms, Small Food Businesses and Sustainable Food Security, is an EU-funded research project of the Horizon2020 program which run from April 2016 to July 2020 with the aim to provide a better understanding of the role of small farms and small food businesses in meeting the sustainable food and nutrition security (FNS) challenge. SALSA pioneered a novel integrated multimethod approach in 30 regions across 19 countries in Europe and Africa using the most recent satellite technologies, transdisciplinary approaches, food systems mapping and participatory foresight analysis.

The Final Conference will take place on 25 June 2020 and will be divided into two main parts:

Part A – 10:00 – 11:00 (CET)

Overview and highlights of main results from the SALSA project

The first part of the Conference aims to summarise and illustrate SALSA’s main results including:

• new concepts and theory developed by the project with respect to small farms and food businesses;
• the validated SALSA methodology, used for identification of small farms crop types, crop area and production estimates, as well as regular monitoring of small farms’ production;
• the novel typology of small farms identified and their importance within food systems;
• Food systems’ maps which unveil the role of small farms and their market linkages within the food systems.

Part B – 11:30 – 13:00 (CET)

Enabling governance and policy recommendations for small farms and small food business

SALSA has aimed to contribute to strengthen the role of small farms and small food business in regional food systems.

This second part of the Conference highlights two of the main SALSA’s contributions in this regard:

• the identification and characterisation of enabling governance frameworks for small farms and small food business;
• tailored and fit-for-purpose multilevel policy recommendations.
• These are particularly crucial in the midst of relevant processes of policy reform in the European Union (CAP and its National Strategic Plans, ‘Farm to Fork’ and ‘Biodiversity’ new strategies, EU-Africa Strategy), as well as in the frame of the current COVID-19 crisis and its impacts on the food system.

The two sessions will welcome the active participation and questions from the audience.

The Programme of the Conference and the bios of the speakers are also available at this link